Inayah is an awesome internet success story. While she started her music career writing songs for a jingle company, a cover of Ella Mai’s “Boo’d Up” went viral on Instagram, skyrocketing her follower count up from 4,000 to 1.3 million. That caught the attention of Empire Records, with whom Inayah secured a distribution deal. In 2019, she had a hit with “Best Thing,” which has been certified platinum and has over 100 million streams on Spotify alone.
Her career has continued to progress from there and that brings us to present day, where Inayah is fresh off the release of her latest single, “Choose.” The song dropped last month, but this week brought the track’s official video.
The clip is directed by City James (known for his work on Kehlani’s “Folded”) and it stars actor Patrick Cage (Mayor Of Kingstown, One Of Them Days, Westworld). The cinematic visual sees the two in both love and conflict. Acting like this is well within Inayah’s realm: She scored her first acting role in 2022 on The Ms. Pat Show, and in 2025, she starred in Tyler Perry’s Finding Joy.
On Instagram, Inayah wrote of the video:
This is my FAVORITE music video to date! Y’all know me, I’ma storyteller… so to see my vision come to life after writing it out was a DREAM come true! @patrickcage is an amazing actor & my director @city.james is a visionaryyyy. thank you both! I hope y’all enjoy this visual just as much as I enjoyed making it!! ‘Choose’ music video out neeeow!
On the song, Inayah sings about being forced to pick between love and music: “But if I’m the one for you, then how you gon’ make me pick between the two? / Don’t ever make me choose, ’cause what if I don’t choose you?”
Watch the “Choose” video above.
