Chiati Teams Up with Rima Sharkawy on Wistful Cut 'Inside My Mind'

Chiati’s latest single 'Inside My Mind' pairs the seasoned Egyptian producer with Sudanese-Lebanese neo-soul and R&B singer Rima Sharkawy, bringing together two of the most distinctive voices in Cairo. The result is a melodic house cut that trades the genre's usual peak-time energy for something slower and more interior.

The track opens like it's in no hurry to get anywhere. Chiati's chords move with the patience of something that already knows where it's going, tinged with a melancholy that feels warmer than it does bleak. A central piano motif holds the track’s structure together as elaborate sound design pulls the listener through what feels like a sequence of rooms opening into each other. The energy accumulates as the track goes on, contemplative even at its fullest.

Sharkawy's vocal opens up new dimensions within the lush instrumental. Her verses are smooth and layered, harmonies stacked close and evolving over time, until the chorus breaks open into a falsetto that cuts straight through everything around it.

By the third quarter, those harmonies move to the foreground, thickening into the track's densest vocal moment and setting up the drop. Here, the instrumental takes center stage, evolving the main motif into a fully realized soundscape, with Rima's falsetto peeking in from the background.

The track is accompanied by a performance video shot and edited by Mohamed Tamer, where the duo deliver their slow-burning track in a recording room jam-packed with instruments.