CHEIDAH Unveils “Totti,” Between Tech House and Italian Roots

With “Totti,” CHEIDAH continues to carve out a place that is difficult to fit into any single category. Blending melodic rap, club energy, tech house and Italian heritage, the French-Canadian artist based in Montreal moves between French, Italian and Neapolitan over a production by Darius. It marks another step in a journey whose strength increasingly lies in the collision of territories, languages and musical scenes.

Some artists can be identified within seconds by a scene, a genre or a city. CHEIDAH seems to be taking the exact opposite path.

Born in France to a Quebecois father and a mother from Tufara, in Italy’s Molise region, the artist grew up in Strasbourg before moving to Montreal in 2017. This double — or perhaps triple — geographical identity is no longer simply biographical. It is increasingly becoming the core of his music.

With his new track “Totti”, CHEIDAH pushes that idea even further.

Produced by Darius, the track blends Italian influences, tech house and rap songwriting, moving between French, Italian and Neapolitan. More than a stylistic device, this multilingual approach allows CHEIDAH to transform his own background into musical material.

“Totti,” somewhere between Rome, Naples and Montreal

The title itself immediately points in a particular direction.

Francesco Totti, the legendary AS Roma player, belongs as much to football history as he does to a wider Italian popular mythology. Using his name as the entry point places the track inside an instantly recognizable cultural world — one shaped by Italy, its symbols, identity and transmission.

But CHEIDAH is not trying to make an “Italian” song in any folkloric sense.

On “Totti,” those references meet a much more electronic and contemporary production. The tech house pulse gives the song a clear connection to club culture, while CHEIDAH’s performance remains rooted in rap and melodic songwriting.

The result exists somewhere between several worlds without fully belonging to any of them.

And that is precisely where CHEIDAH begins to become particularly interesting.

A unique position within Montreal’s music scene

Since his early releases, CHEIDAH has moved between different musical currents.

His journey initially took him towards a more melodic form of rap before gradually opening up to electronic music. In Quebec, he has explored Drum & Bass and Baile Funk, two territories that remain relatively uncommon within the local French-language rap scene.

This approach has already taken him to Radio-Canada, where he was invited by Nicolas Ouellet, as well as to several Montreal stages including Piknic Électronik, C2 Montréal, Quai des Brumes, Muzique and Verre Bouteille.

In other words, CHEIDAH does not operate exclusively within traditional rap circuits.

His project moves between hip-hop, electronic music and club culture, and that mobility is gradually becoming an identity in itself.

From Drum & Bass to tech house

In 2025, this evolution became even more pronounced.

With “Per la vie”, produced by Darius m4a, CHEIDAH was already pushing his sound towards tech house. By contrast, “Ça mène à rien”, produced by Dipsy in Montreal, returned to a more stripped-back approach: more direct rapping, an immediately memorable hook and bouncy West Coast influences combined with electronic textures.

“Totti” now seems to bring these different experiments together.

The track does not choose between rap and club music.

It makes them coexist.

That ability to bring different influences into the same song also mirrors CHEIDAH’s own journey: a French artist who became part of Montreal’s cultural landscape, shaped by an Italian family heritage while living in a city where rap and electronic scenes constantly intersect.

Italy as a language, not just a backdrop

One of the most distinctive aspects of “Totti” is its use of language.

Moving from French to Italian and then Neapolitan could easily have become a purely aesthetic exercise. Here, however, that plurality is directly connected to the artist’s own history.

Italy already occupies an important place in his family memories.

CHEIDAH recalls that one of his earliest memories of Montreal’s Little Italy dates back to July 9, 2006. He was eight years old when Italy won the World Cup against France, sending the neighborhood into celebration.

Years later, he now lives there.

That story almost perfectly sums up what runs through his music today: identities that do not cancel each other out, but instead overlap.

An artist who is difficult to categorize — and that may be his strength

At a time when many projects immediately search for a label that platforms and audiences can easily identify, CHEIDAH is building almost the opposite.

He can begin with rap, move through Baile Funk, touch on Drum & Bass and then shift into tech house without completely abandoning songwriting or melody.

That lack of boundaries can obviously make the project more difficult to define.

But it may also become its greatest advantage.

Between Montreal, Strasbourg, Molise, rap and club culture, CHEIDAH is beginning to occupy a space where relatively few French-speaking artists currently position themselves.

With “Totti,” he is therefore not simply adding another influence to his music.

Instead, he seems to be bringing together all the influences that were already there.

And it may be precisely within this in-between space that CHEIDAH is beginning to find his true musical identity.