Rapper Goes Viral for ‘White Girl Dance’ in the Street (Exclusive)

Unsighted, a Toronto-based content creator and performer, is a hallmark of rage rap: a music subgenre characterized by its angry lyrics, heavily distorted production and intensely aggressive themes. His songs are strewn with expletives, his performances filmed in dimly lit parking garages.

But from his most liked post on TikTok, you would never expect it.

The video, which he shared in July and is soundtracked by Kesha’s fizzy 2010 hit “Your Love Is My Drug,” sees Unsighted step into a crowded city sidewalk, take a centering deep breath ahead of the beat drop, and then throw his hands in the air, moving his body like nobody’s watching.

It’s clearly infectious: In the clip, one woman walking by spots the rapper dancing and joins in as people around them cheer. The video has been viewed over 22 million times.

But how did a Canadian rage rapper become known for what he dubs his “White girl dance”?

“I’m a cutie patootie at heart,” Unsighted admits to PEOPLE.

The performer first opened his social media accounts as a college student, actually as an outlet for his poetry, adopting the name Unsighted to keep his work anonymous. Poetry led to an interest in rap, and over the last three years, he started to “take the account more seriously” to promote his music, he says. But it was his “White girl dance” that made him go viral.

“I had a previous partner and whenever we would be out, she’d be like, ‘You ready? Let’s dance.’ And that’s the move she would hit,” says Unsighted, describing the characteristic raised arms and free-flowing body movements that he shows off in his videos. “We were out with her friends, and all of them hit that move. I was like, ‘What is this?’ ”

On June 25, he posted a video of himself standing in an empty street dancing to the Kesha track, and the video took off, garnering hundreds of thousands of likes. So he did it again — in a karaoke bar, on public transit, in a food court, in a Sephora, in a Starbucks, and, of course, in a Target — and the likes kept coming.

“I’ve been doing it every day for weeks now,” he tells PEOPLE with a big laugh.

When he first started filming his dancing videos in public, says Unsighted, it was “scary” and a bit like “rejection therapy.” He props his phone on a tripod, plays the iconic Kesha track from a speaker, and comes up to random passersby, telling them that he dances with strangers on TikTok and inviting them to join.

“One in five are receptive to listen, one in 10 do it,” he says. At least in the beginning.

Now, as the creator has racked up millions of views from his viral series, he’s getting approached in the street by fans before he’s even had time to set up the camera.

“Every time I go outside, there’s five to 10 people who stop me to say hi,” says Unsighted.

Now, the Canadian internet personality has gone all-in on his viral moment. In one video, he got thousands of his fans to tag Kesha (the pop star later reposted a video of his). He’s even started a crowdfunding campaign to raise travel money to bring the “White girl dance” to a new city beyond Toronto.

But, the rapper says, he wasn’t initially sure how to ensure that the other side of his personality — his rage rap — would still be represented in his content.

“It was scary at first,” says Unsighted. “If I show all of this happiness and all of this joy, will I get a joy that doesn’t like the aggression?”

“But I feel like, just because you’re an angry rapper doesn’t mean you can’t be someone who can go and have a good time dancing with people in the street. Just because you align with your feminine energy doesn’t mean you’re not a man,” he continues. “I realize that in order for me to go into spaces where there aren’t those barriers, I can’t put those barriers on myself.”

Now, his posts are a healthy balance of the two — and it hasn’t seemed to slow down his virality. (On a clip he posted of his newest rap song, one fan commented, “Damn! Did not expect this given your other videos, but I’m loving it!”)

But beyond the millions of likes, Unsighted tells PEOPLE, the “most impactful” part of the “White girl dance” trend that he helped create has been the stories he’s heard from people from around the world.

“How many people are saying, ‘This healed a piece inside of me.’ How many people are like, ‘This is healing the world.’ And the fact that, in the city itself, it’s creating more community,” says the creator, commenting that several people have made friends just by participating in one of his videos.

“Some of the messages are really heavy,” he adds, like the ones from followers who are going through intense grief and are finding light in his comedic videos. “So many people reach out and have really heartwarming or really devastating stories.”

Concludes Unsighted: “That is probably the most [magical] part of everything.”