Inna
Inna, born Elena Alexandra Apostoleanu, on her Black Sea coast roots, the 2009 Billboard No. 1 for Hot, Global Records, and her Spanish-language album YO.
Photo: Global Records, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized and converted to WebP.
Neptun, on the Black Sea Coast
Inna was born Elena Alexandra Apostoleanu, the name Billboard gave when it premiered one of her videos in 2019. Romanian sources place her childhood in the resort strip south of Constanta, though they do not agree on the exact town of her birth. The Constanta daily Ziua de Constanta says she was born on 16 October 1986 in Mangalia and grew up in nearby Neptun. HotNews.ro, writing in January 2010, described her simply as born in Neptun and 23 years old, which matches a 1986 birth year.
The stage name came from home. In a 2023 piece, Newsweek Romania wrote that her grandfather was the one who called her Inna. The same article describes a restless child who skipped classes, preferred playing with boys, and struggled with math.
Colegiul Economic and Ovidius University
She stayed close to the coast for school. Ziua de Constanta lists the Colegiul Economic in Mangalia and then Ovidius University in Constanta. Evenimentul Zilei adds that her degree at Ovidius was from the Faculty of Political Science, and that she finished it but never worked in the field.
Hot and the Play & Win Producers
Her debut single, Hot, was made with the production team Play & Win. HotNews.ro named its three members as Radu Boflea, Sebastian Barac and Marcel Botezan. Before it reached the United States, it had gone to No. 1 on the Spanish singles chart and into the top 10 in Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands, according to Billboard.
At the end of 2009 Hot reached No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay chart. Billboard's Chart Beat column noted that it was her first No. 1 on any U.S. survey, and that she was 23. HotNews.ro reported the result in January 2010 under the headline that a Romanian singer had topped the Billboard charts, calling her the first Romanian artist to appear on a Billboard chart and the first to place on Hot Dance Airplay.
Global Records and the 2015 Album INNA
Her records come out through Global Records, the label run by Stefan Lucian. In a January 2016 review of the label's year, Crazy Radio called it the largest independent label in Romania and listed Alexandra Stan, Antonia and Carla's Dreams on the same roster.
That review also covered her fourth album, titled INNA, released in 2015. Two of its singles, Diggy Down and BOP BOP, went to No. 1 on Romanian radio. She won Best Romanian Act at the MTV Romania awards, and at the time of the article she was playing dates across Europe and in Japan, Mexico and Chile.
YO, a Spanish Album on Roc Nation
Her sixth studio album went in a different direction. YO was written entirely in Spanish by Inna herself and released through Roc Nation on May 31, 2019. Billboard's Latin section premiered the video for Te Vas ahead of the release and listed the album's other singles: Tu Manera, Sin Ti, Ra and Iguana.
She described Te Vas to Billboard in one line: "Te Vas is a passionate love story told by the woman who was left behind." A decade earlier, Hot had topped the singles chart in Spain.
Sources
- Inna's 'Te Vas' Video: Exclusive | Billboard
- Chart Beat Thursday: Ke$ha, Susan Boyle, Willie Nelson
- Romanian singer tops Billboard charts - HotNews.ro
- Inna vrea sa-l „bata" pe Marius Moga
- Ce avere are Inna. A făcut un imperiu din muzică - Evenimentul Zilei
- Global Records, casa de discuri a INNEI, un an cu rezultate impresionante - Radio Crazy
- Recunoașteți personajul? Fetița din imagine, artista cu care România se mândrește peste hotare
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