Laila! Turns Her 'Not My Problem' Mantra into an '80s 'Self-Help' Hotline in Her Latest Music Video (Exclusive)

• Singer-producer Laila! exclusively premiered her "Not My Problem" music video with PEOPLE on Aug. 16
• The 18-year-old musician discussed making the '80s-inspired visual for her viral hit
• She also talked about her debut album, Gap Year, which releases on Sept. 6

Rising star Laila! is making a career out of being 100% carefree.

Over the past year-plus, the 18-year-old Brooklyn native has unearthed a Gen-Z sound all her own by musing about the ups and downs of everyday teenagehood on buzzy singles like "Like That!" and "Not My Problem" — the latter of which skyrocketed her to viral stardom this summer.

The nonchalant runaway hit first gained popularity through a beat challenge Laila! started on SoundCloud in June after the song dropped. However, an appearance on the freestyle platform On the Radar Radio and a grassroots remix challenge fueled by fellow New Yorker Cash Cobain — plus big names like Flo Milli, 6lack and Fabolous — kicked her and the track's budding fame into high gear.

It's an impressive feat achieved by Laila! in her less than two-year journey of dropping music, but one she hopes to top with her newly released "Not My Problem" music video, which PEOPLE can exclusively premiere.

The visual, directed by Otmara Marrero, is true to the unconcerned ethos of "Not My Problem" — a refrain Laila! coolly repeats throughout the hit song — as it's inspired by a hotline number the singer-producer paired with the single's early summer release.

It begins outside of a New York City nightclub, where Laila! and her girls roll up on the former's boyfriend, seen cozied up with another girl. However, she calmly brushes off her lover's cheating ways, telling her crew, "You know what, y'all, that's not my problem."

The video then follows the singer to her bedroom when a TV commercial pops up for the "Not My Problem" hotline, aka an '80s-style call center founded by fictional CEO Laila! to help people "deal with problems that aren't theirs."

"I always imagined [the video] having to do with a self-help kind of thing," she tells PEOPLE, "[saying] 'This is not my problem' and how you can apply that to your daily life because it's something we can all relate to."

Intrigued by the idea of dreaming up a visual not set in today's time, the breakout star says she strived to make something "fun" that played around with trends of the '80s, when "self-help in magazines and hotlines was super popular, and everybody wanted to get a piece of good advice."

"Everybody wanted to [know] how to get the most out of life, how to say no and say yes to certain things, so I felt like this would be such a cool moment to make it an advice kind of thing," the beatmaker adds. "And then with the creation of the actual hotline, I thought it'd be perfect to play into that as well."

Laila! says the video treatment flowed naturally from there as she collaborated with her team on a "time-travel" concept she's quite fond of.

"Our video was super cool because it starts in the '90s, and then we enter this super cool '80s dream sequence, which takes me to this fantasy land of the 'Not My Problem' call center and being this spokeswoman," she explains. "We really got to play around so much with different outfits and real stuff from the '90s and '80s... it was very intentional."

"We even had a fake payphone in there," she adds. "It really felt like being inside of a time capsule, and I love a good period piece."

Laila!'s "Not My Problem" music video marks her second overall, as she just started releasing music professionally in early 2023. Not much has changed in her world since, though — aside from hundreds of thousands of listeners now tuned into her music journey.

According to the musician, her debut single "Like That!" was "really special because it was my first song, so having that be such a big moment was not something I necessarily anticipated, but was really exciting." However, "Not My Problem," she says, is the game-changing moment "when people really started to put a face to the music. "

The "positive, beautiful" public response to the track — which placed on Billboard's TikTok Top 50 and Hot R&B charts — is what's stuck with Laila! most so far, especially the kids who have called her "Not My Problem" hotline to share how she inspires them.

"It was really, really sweet," she adds. "But I feel like other than that, nothing has really changed [in my life] too much. I'm still just doing me, being a teenage kid."

As far back as she can remember, Laila! — whose the daughter of hip-hop legend Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) — always knew she was destined for musical greatness. If her childhood "baby genius" nickname — given to her by her dad, grandmother and a close friend of momager Jessica Chong — wasn't enough assurance, her years-long commitment to perfecting her craft throughout high school was all the more confirmation that she's serious about pursuing her music dreams.

"Growing up, I was surrounded by my peers who'd be trying to figure out what their career path is, or what they want and who they want to be," the songwriter says, "so I always felt incredibly fortunate to have always had something I knew for sure is what I want to do."

As she navigated her school-age years, Laila! slowly developed a love for music, mainly hip-hop and R&B, writing songs and listening to her "extensive '90s playlist" of artists like Janet and Michael Jackson — "my first two biggest influences" — Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill, Faith Evans, Brandy and Aaliyah.

"I started really listening to the things that inspired me and that I wanted to take when it came to my own artistic journey," she explains. "Because I feel like that's one of the most important parts of being an artist."

Eventually, Laila! discovered a knack for beat-making in high school, which has since matured into a desire to be a full-blown music producer. The next display of that will shine on the singer's debut album, Gap Year!, a 17-track offering, all written and produced by her, that chronicles her journey through adolescence and teenagehood.

"It's such a personal project, and I touch on so many different themes when it comes to love, longing, not feeling the most confident, but also excitement and joy and just fun," the producer says of her LP, which arrives on Sept. 6.

"I think that I really want people to take away, especially kids my age, that we're not alone in this. I hope I can inspire other people to do whatever it is that they feel makes them happy or follow whatever dream, goal, or ambition that they have. Because life is very short and we should all do things that make us feel good."

More than that, though, Laila! hopes her debut project will "show people that I am a musician at the end of the day."

"I've had these moments where the online virality is super fun and cool, but I also want to show people that I really do want to have a career that's tangible and feels real," she adds. "Because as amazing as those moments are, and as much as they've definitely changed everything for me, I also want to show people that I have so much to say and offer; that I really am a full-on, thought-out artist."