i7tikar, The Story of a Track That Will Never Be Released
The story behind I7tikar, a bootleg born during a studio session with Seriously Sam and later incorporated into the Electronic Arab Lost Tapes Dancefloor Show.
9/21/20263 min read
Some tracks are written with the intention of being released. Others appear almost by accident, during a studio session, when someone is simply having fun with an idea. I7tikar belongs very much to the second category.
The story began during a studio session with Seriously Sam, the artist behind Modern Phenomenon, the very first EP released by Wild Bohemia Records. Sam was playing around with words and melodies, looking for something that would simply be fun to sing. At some point, I Feel Love by Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder entered the picture. The words were transformed into I7tikar — احتكار, meaning “monopoly”.
The joke worked immediately. In Tunisia, I7tikar is a familiar word, one that regularly appears in everyday conversations around prices, goods, speculation and the way certain things are controlled or circulate. Replacing “I feel love” with “I7tikar” turns a timeless declaration of love into something completely different. For anyone familiar with the local context, the joke is almost self-explanatory.
What could have remained a moment of fun in the studio gradually became a track. Cali Kula recorded the session, produced Sam's vocals and mixed the recording. Together with Ogra, he then decided to take the idea further and turn it into a piece of Electronic Arab Lost Tapes, their project exploring imagined and fragmented electronic archives from the Arab world.
I7tikar naturally found its place in the Electronic Arab Lost Tapes — Dancefloor Show. Since 2023, it has existed primarily in that context: on stage, in front of an audience, as part of a live performance. It was never conceived as a conventional single or as a new Wild Bohemia release. It was a bootleg, a piece of the show, and a small musical joke that had somehow found its place between archive, performance and dancefloor.
Three years later...
In September 2026, Cali Kula and Ogra decided to share a short excerpt of I7tikar on Instagram. The intention was simple: to give the track a small digital trace and to document a piece of the Electronic Arab Lost Tapes show for an audience that might never have encountered it live.
It was not meant as a release announcement, a teaser or a campaign. Just a fragment of a track that had been part of the show since 2023.
Then the messages started coming in.
People wanted to know where they could find the full track. Some asked whether it was on Bandcamp. Others asked when it would be released. The small archive fragment suddenly started reaching people who had never seen the show, and I7tikar began to take on a life of its own outside the context in which it had originally existed.
Which naturally led to the next question: when is it coming out?
It isn't.
And that part of the story is actually quite simple.
I7tikar is built around I Feel Love, a work whose rights are not owned by Cali Kula, Ogra or Wild Bohemia. Everyone involved is fully aware of that, and questions of authorship, copyright and the rights attached to existing works are taken seriously by both the artists and the label.
I7tikar has always been treated for what it is: a bootleg created for the Electronic Arab Lost Tapes show. It was never intended to become an official commercial release, and it will not be released on streaming platforms, Bandcamp, Beatport or any other music platform.
I7tikar will remain I7tikar.
Why share it at all?
Because a track does not necessarily have to become a product in order to have a life.
I7tikar has been part of the Electronic Arab Lost Tapes Dancefloor Show since 2023. It already belongs to a larger story: studio sessions, performances, improvised ideas, musical references and all the strange little accidents that can happen when musicians start playing with something without knowing where it will lead.
In September 2026, we simply decided to leave a small trace of it behind.
A short excerpt. A piece of the show. A studio memory. An archive.
And, unexpectedly, a story worth telling.
Seriously Sam remembers the moment quite simply: she was just having fun in the studio. There was no grand plan behind it, no intention to create a future single. A few years later, that small joke has reached an audience far beyond the room where it started.
We understand why some of you would like to hear the whole thing. But I7tikar will stay where it has always belonged: in the show.
Perhaps that is fitting. Some tracks are made to be released. Others are made to be played, remembered, passed around, and occasionally rediscovered.
I7tikar was born from a joke, found its place on the dancefloor, and unexpectedly found a new audience three years later.
For now, that's where its story ends.
I7tikar — إحتكار
A bootleg from the Electronic Arab Lost Tapes — Dancefloor Show.
Born in the studio. Played on the dancefloor. Archived in 2026.
Never officially released.
