The mythical, one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, was sold to infamous “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli for $2 million in 2015. But it wound up being seized by the federal government after Shkreli was convicted of three counts of fraud in August 2017 and sentenced to seven years in prison.
During a recent interview with Hot 97 co-hosts Ebro Darden, Peter Rosenberg and Laura Stylez, RZA expressed how much regret he felt when he realized the album ended up with someone like Shkreli.
“It was in the wrong hands,” RZA said matter-of-factly. “He made the deal before it was revealed of his character, of his personality, and all of the insidious things he would go on to do.”
In July, an anonymous buyer acquired the album, but their identity was concealed — that is until earlier this month. On October 20, the group behind the $4 million purchase was identified as PleasrDAO, “a collective of DeFi leaders, early NFT collectors and digital artists who have built a formidable yet benevolent reputation for acquiring culturally significant pieces with a charitable twist,” according to its website.
RZA is optimistic their intentions are pure and will fall in line with some of the visions he had for the project, including museum installations and album listening experiences.
“[Those things] were not going to be able to happen with Mr. Shkreli,” he continued. “Now that PleasrDAO has it, there’s opportunity that a lot these beautiful ideas of what this art can be and how it could expand itself in the world and in its own life of itself. I think the possibilities are there now.”
Stop The Press: Martin Shkreli's $1M Sale Of Rare Wu-Tang Clan LP Is Incomplete
While the album has always been packaged in an ornate silver box accompanied by a leather-bound booklet, it now has a digital component: an NFT deed of ownership.
“This beautiful piece of art, this ultimate protest against middlemen and rent seekers of musicians and artists, went south by going into the hands of Martin Shkreli, the ultimate internet villain,” PleasrDAO’s Chief Pleasing Officer Jamis Johnson says. “We want this to be us bringing this back to the people. We want fans to participate in this album at some level.”
Duh fuq you doing with a shy lock to begin with hey hey hay oi vey
You okay?
there are some people on this site that might be school shooters…. weirdos
Tf are you talking about?
RZA should do the right thing and buy the project back and release it. This idea was a total fail from day one. It was a big FU to the fans. Its one thing to hoard unreleased tracks in a vault like Dre, but playing favoritism with rich fans is some hoe shit. I really hope it gets leaked.
It got Cash into struggling Wu-Tang members pockets. They aren’t that rich. So u not wanting them to have some new cash quickly and more than they would have made the normal way is u being a dick fan
I hope this gets to the people where it belongs.