The 27-year-old Romanian has blazed through the global charts with hits like “Hot,” “Sun Is Up” and “Déjà vu,” collaborating with the likes of Pitbull, Flo-Rida, Daddy Yankee and Juan Magán and reaching the top slots in dozens of countries, from her native Romania to Japan, Mexico, Turkey, Argentina, Spain, Finland, Poland and the U.S.
With looks and dance moves that match her musical talent, Inna has won multiple MTV Europe Awards, Romanian Music Awards and RRA Awards and in 2012 became the first and only European female artist to reach 1 billion YouTube views, in addition to boasting 12 million Facebook fans and over 600,000 Twitter followers.
Inna initially applied her vocal prowess to rock and pop, but Play & Win also convinced her to record a few dance songs. One of those was “Hot,” an up-tempo, empowering dance track featuring Inna’s soaring voice, singing in English. What happened next is the stuff dreams are made of.
“Hot” would become one of those rare, unstoppable tracks that transcends language and geography, climbing charts all around Eurpoe. Inna’s subsequent singles—“Love,” “Deja-Vu,” “Amazing” and “Sun Is Up” all became major European hits. By the end of 2009, Inna had released Hot, the album, throughout Europe, collecting MTV Romania Music awards and MTV Europe Music Awards—among many other accolades—along the way, even as “Hot,” the single, continued its romp across the continent and eventually, across the Atlantic, also topping Billboard charts in the U.S.
Now, Inna is preparing for her biggest release yet. Already, “Cola Song” is climbing the charts even as a second single—“Good Time,” featuring Pitbull—awaits in the wings.
“My first dream was to have a song released everywhere, at the same time in all the countries that play my kind of music,” she says.
“And my second dream is to be even bigger in the U.S. and have my music play beyond dance stations. I want everyone who goes to a club to know who I am: I am Inna from Europe.”