RZA, like all of us, was pretty bummed that Martin Shkreli owned Once Upon A Time In Shaolin

Now that Wu-Tang Clan's single-copy album is out of Shkreli's claws, RZA's feeling better about it

By Reid McCarter  |  October 29, 2021 | 6:00pm
Music Features Martin Shkreli
RZA, like all of us, was pretty bummed that Martin Shkreli owned Once Upon A Time In Shaolin
Wu-Tang, it turns out, was never for the pharma execs. Photo: Presley Ann

In 2015, haunted ventriloquist dummy and pharmaceuticals monster Martin Shkreli bought the only copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon A Time In Shaolin. True to form, he kept the music to himself aside from one instance when, a surge of evil cheer rushing through his body, he celebrated the then-president’s 2016 election win by playing a few of the tracks online. A rare instance of actual comeuppance resulted in Shkreli’s 2018 arrest, though, followed by a seven-year jail sentence and the U.S. government seizing the Wu-Tang Clan record and selling it off last summer.

Now, RZA has spoken up about the whole affair, saying that while he was understandably upset that Shkreli won the auction for Shaolin in the first place, he’s now hopeful its new owners will finally let it get out into the world.

During a Wednesday interview on Hot 97's Ebro In The Morning, RZA spoke a universal truth in saying that Once Upon A Time In Shaolin ended up falling into “the wrong hands in all reality.” He says, with “no disrespect to Martin Shkreli,” that the deal was made for him to buy it “before it was revealed … his character, his personality, and all of the insidious things he would go on to do.”

“It was a sale and I can’t complain on who you sell it to,” he says. “But now I think it’s in the right hands. And I’m hoping it’s in the right hands.”

The album is now owned by a crypto collective called PleasrDAO, which doesn’t seem promising either, but Bobby Digital himself believes the new owners will likely share the record the way Wu-Tang hoped it would be shared in the first place.

“He just seems to have more of a Wu vibe about him,” RZA says of the collective member he’s spoken to, going on to say that he thinks the PleasrDAO will facilitate the album “[expanding] itself in the world and its own life of itself” where Shkreli stopped that from happening in the past.

We’re a bit less optimistic, wondering if any crypto group can resist the allure of keeping the mother of all NFTs (non-fungible Tang) to themselves. But, if nothing else, RZA’s feeling positive about Shaolin finally escaping Shkreli’s clutches and that’s got to be better than nothing.

Watch the entire interview here.

[via Stereogum]

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