The Wu-Tang Clan are the clergy of the hip-hop world; the high priests of verse and virtue. Their legendary album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin has become a sacred text of the modern music scene, reflecting our need for consumption over all else. Its transcended the function of the typical album and taken on a mythology and a life of its own. And no ones ever even heard the thing.
In 2015 The Wu-Tang Clan released the album, recording it with a great deal of secrecy in order to ensure its safety. They made a single copy of the album, and toured it around the world in art galleries where a handful of people could listen to parts in person only. The album was then sold at auction for 2 million dollars. With it came a legal agreement stating the album couldn't sold, replicated or copied for 88 years.
This was far and away the most expensive album ever sold, and no one outside the Clan themself had heard the thing in it's entirety. The album came in a hand-carved silver box, with an art book and a pair of speakers worth over fifty grand. The album itself cnsosts of two CDs, both with 13 tracks each, one titled the Shaolin School and the other the Allah School. We also know many of the featured artists on the album including Killa Sin and Cher. The album seems to function as something more than a typical hip-hop album. RZA wrote this about the album:
"Perhaps it is our cultural attitudes to modern music that have cast it as something to be consumed. The complacency of no holds barred access and the saturation wrought by technology’s erosion of challenges. Mass replication has fundamentally changed the way we view a piece of recorded music, while digital universality and vanishing physicality have broken our emotional bond with a piece of music as an artwork and a deeply personal treasure."
By resisting the ability to consume the album as we usually would, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin shows us the absurdity of the music industry's obsession with replication, consumption, and saturation. Without even hearing a single track you can tell the album is a great work. A few tracks have been released actually, only because the man who purchased the album, Martin Shkreli, played a few during a twitch livestream.
Before purchasing the album, Martin Shkreli was known as the "pharma bro', with his company Turing Pharmaceuticals purchasing the license to a particular drug used in treating HIV and raised it's price from $13 a pill to $750 a pill. Many condemned this as a morally bankrupt act of capitalism, but Shkreli just smirked at the haters in this "holier than thou" manner while cashing his cheques. When it turned out this guy was the one who purchased the infamous Wu-Tang album, feelings were mixed.
Shkreli is actually quite the rap fan. He has a vast collection of hip-hop memorabelia, and there was even talk about Shkreli bailing out Bobby Shmurda from jail back in 2016. RZA himself said he would only sell the album to a true hip-hop fan, and Shkreli seemed to fit the bill. But this kid doesnt seem worthy to be in possesion of such a sacred text, it seems blashamous in many ways.
Martin Shkreli was arrested by the FBI in December of 2015. It turns out that Shkreli was running a pretty clever ponzi scheme, taking millions from investors while really being worth about -$12.00. On March 9, 2018 he was sentenced to 7 years in prison. Shkreli attempted to sell the album on Ebay prior to his sentencing, but the transaction was never completed and the album was seized by the Federal government along with the rest of Shkreli's assets. The federal government now owns the only copy of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, let that sink in for a moment. I can hear the conspiracy theories already. What exactly is on these albums that the government needed to step in? what has the Wu-Tang Clan said that we aren't supposed to hear? Satanic rituals? Proof of the illuminati? Its starting to look like we'll never know...
Theres still hope though. In the legal agreement signed when the album was sold there's a clause that states either Bill Murray or the Wu-Tang Clan themselves are allowed to attempt a heist to retrieve the album one time without any legal repercussion. Whether or not such a clause would hold up against armed robbery charges is another story, but we have to hope that somehow this sacred text will see the light of day, and the people will hear the greatest gospel of the Wu-Tang Clan.
Below is a video of Martin Shrkeli streaming a few tracks off the album after Donald Trump became president.
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