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Elena Alexandra Apostoleanu was born on October 16, 1986, in Neptun, Constanţa, România. The singer recalls that the love for music was brought to her by her family, who supported her permanently. In her childhood, her grandfather called her Inna, and she eventually decided that her stage name would be Inna. When she was a teenager, Inna listened to a large variety of musical genres. Although her favourite style was electro-dance, she also listened to Christina Aguilera's or Beyoncé's music. She also recalls her love for music and how it was so easy for her to sing every song that she liked. Even though Inna was born and grew-up in Neptun, she studied at an Economical high school in Mangalia. After graduating from high school with good marks, she attempted a degree in Political Sciences at the University of Constanţa. At the end of 2007, Inna signed a contract with Romanian producers Play & Win and she started recording her first tracks. In early 2008, Inna entered a couple of songs for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, but none of them ("Goodbye" and "Oare") managed to pass the pre-selection. "Hot" era (2008 - 2010) Inna debuted in 2009 with the album Hot, produced by Play & Win. The main single from the album, the eponymous "Hot", reached top chart positions in Romania, Portugal, Brazil, Moldova, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Libya, Poland, Serbia, Gibraltar, Spain, Syria, Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Slovakia, Greece, Pakistan and Ukraine.[1][2] The second single promoted from the album, "Love", reached number sixteen in Kiss FM's Fresh Top 40 in its debut week and peaked at number four on the Romanian Top 100[3] She was nominated for best singer and best single at the Eska Awards in Poland.[2] Inna then released a single titled "Déjà Vu", in collaboration with Romanian DJ Bob Taylor, that was a major hit in Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Russia, The Netherlands and Hungary.[2] Her fourth single from her debut album was "Amazing", which reached number one in Inna's home country Romania and entered the charts of several European countries such as France, U.K. and Germany. The video was shot in Portugal. In 2009, Inna reached the biggest performance of her career to date, as her single "Hot" peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay chart. Both Inna and U.S. singer Ke$ha became the first artists on this chart to swap each others' number-one chart positions with debut singles, with Inna's "Hot" succeeding Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" and then having the later returned the favor to the former. At the MTV Europe Music Awards 2009 on November 5, 2009 in Berlin, Germany, Inna won the award for Best Romanian Act. To support the Romanian release of her debut album "Hot", Inna promoted a fifth single entitled "10 Minutes" in March 2010. It failed to reach the top ten of the Romanian Top 100 and peaked at number eighteen. The music video of the song was shot in London, England. At the 2010 Romanian Music Awards Inna won the awards for Best Female, Best Album, Best Show, Best Web Site and Best International Artist, and performed her Romanian number one single "Amazing". She also presented a brand new song entitled "Sun Is Up". The track was sent to Romanian radio stations in June 2010 and quickly became a hit in her home country. On November 28, 2010 "Sun Is Up" reached number two on the Romanian Top 100, becoming Inna's fifth top ten single and her second highest charting single of her career, only being behind "Amazing". For a second time in a row Inna won the regional voting in the run-up of the MTV Europe Music Awards 2010, receiving the award for Best Romanian Act. But for the first time she became one of five regional winners having the chance to win the Best European Act award at the main show on November 7, 2010. She competed with Afromental from Poland, Dima Bilan from Russia, Enrique Iglesias from Spain and Marco Mengoni from Italy but lost to the Italian representative.
