Martin Shkreli, owner of the world’s sole copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon A Time In Shaolin record, has decided to sell, and is now trying to offload it to the highest bidder.
Back in 2014, Wu-Tang Clan announced that their newest record, which had been recorded in secret over a number of years, was going to be released rather unconventionally. Instead of mass-producing it and selling it, the influential hip-hop group instead decided they were going to press one lone copy of the record on CD, and sell it to the public.
In 2015, the record sold in a private auction for a massive $2 million to “pharma-bro” Martin Shkreli. Shkreli had previously made headlines for for hiking the price of Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug used for treating parasitic infections, from $13.50 to $750 a tablet. Needless to say, he wasn’t too popular in the world of medicine, and now that he’d monopolised the only copy of the new Wu-Tang Clan album, he became pretty unpopular yet again.
Now, almost two years after the record was originally bought by Martin Shkreli, he’s attempting to sell it. As The Guardian reports, Shkreli listed the record on online auction site eBay for the meagre sum of $1 on Tuesday night. At the time of writing, the item has attracted over 300 bids, and currently sits at US $1.0001 million.
“This is the one and only Wu-Tang album,” Shkreli writes on the item’s listing. “I decided to purchase this album as a gift to the Wu-Tang Clan for their tremendous musical output. Instead I received scorn from at least one of their (least-intelligent) members, and the world at large failed to see my purpose of putting a serious value behind music. I will be curious to see if the world values music nearly as much as I have. I have donated to many rock bands and rappers over the years to ensure they can continue to produce their art when few others would.”
“At any time I may cancel this sale and I may even break this album in frustration,” he continues. “I will donate half of the sale proceeds to medical research. I am not selling to raise cash–my companies and I have record amounts of cash on hand. I hope someone with a bigger heart for music can be found for this one-of-a-kind piece and makes it available for the world to hear.”
Back in 2016, Martin Shrekli stated that he was going to leak the album if Donald Trump was to win the US presidential election. He partially followed up on this promise by playing two tracks the background of live stream on YouTube, which of course meant you had to look at his smug face if you wanted to hear the songs. Then, in February, Shkreli tried to host a listening party for the record, which was swiftly shut down after the notorious figure received a number of threats.
Of course, fans are understandably pretty angry about the whole ordeal. See, the original auction came with the stipulation that the purchase of the record was allowed to release the album’s contents for free, but was not allowed to exploit the record commercially until 2103. Fans believed a charitable buyer may have provided them with the tunes they wished to hear, but have been left disappointed.
So if you’re cashed up and hoping to hear the Wu-Tang Clan’s infamous record, head on over to eBay and start bidding. While Shkreli has admitted he’ll give half of the proceeds to medical research, be warned though, he’s also stated that at any point he might just “break this album in frustration.” So let’s hope whoever manages to buy the record gets a bargain, can give the record a safe home, and most importantly, will share it with the band’s adoring fans.
Check out the Wu-Tang Clan’s newest single, ‘People Say’, below.
