The Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is sensationally coming to Australia, but do you know the history behind the rare record?
Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is Wu-Tang Clan’s seventh group album, containing a whopping 31 tracks. All surviving members of the beloved hip hop group – RZA, GZA, Inspectah Deck, Method Man, Raekwon the Chef, Ghostface Killah, U-God, Masta Killa, and Capadonna – appear on the album, which took six years to complete.
However, there is only one physical copy of this album, existing on two compact discs, and all masters were destroyed after the album was pressed. This makes a leak nearly impossible – in a genre rife with leaks – as only the current owner has access to the single copy.
RZA and co-producer Cilvaringz conceived the album during a trip to Egypt in 2004, inspired by Ancient Egyptian culture’s fixation on permanence. They aimed to create something that would last through the ages.
In an interview with Forbes, RZA said, ‘We’re making a single-sale collector’s item. This is like somebody having the scepter of an Egyptian king.” He also criticised the devaluation of music, stating, “The idea that music is art has been something we advocated for years. And yet it doesn’t receive the same treatment as art in the sense of the value of what it is, especially nowadays when it’s been devalued and diminished to almost the point that it has to be given away for free.”
The album’s exclusivity, RZA claims, demands that we hold it in the same regard as fine art. To see the Mona Lisa, one must travel to Paris, and looking at a copy is not the same. However, this mentality has not held true for music, which is often copied and transferred without compensating the artists. Wu-Tang Clan aimed to create a sense of exclusivity and specialness, where the buyer serves as a patron of the arts, similar to the Renaissance era.
Cilvaringz largely composed the production in Marrakesh, Morocco, with creative input from RZA. The goal was to replicate the raw, rugged Wu-Tang Clan sound that made the collective famous. After completing the production, Cilvaringz and RZA decided on the track assignments and travelled to Staten Island to record the verses.
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Cilvaringz admitted he was vague with the members about the album’s specifics, leading to misunderstandings and hard feelings. Method Man expressed his frustration in 2015, saying, “F*ck that album.”
In 2014, Forbes sent a camera crew to Marrakesh to meet Cilvaringz, who played them 51 seconds of the album, which sounded like vintage Wu-Tang. Complex received a tracklist of 26 songs during a private listening session in 2015, though the final album contains 31 tracks. The album includes contributions from Redman, the Wu-Tang Killa Beez, and Cher, who recorded for the album without accepting payment.
The album was housed in a handcrafted, nickel-plated box designed by British-Moroccan artist Yahya. The box-within-a-box contained the CDs, a leather-bound book of liner notes, and other intricate details, all crafted to specification.
The original plan was to take the album on a tour, holding listening parties at art museums and music festivals before selling it. However, this tour never materialised, and the album was sold at auction instead.
The buyer, Martin Shkreli, paid $2 million for it in 2015. Shkreli, known as the ‘Pharma Bro,’ became infamous for raising the price of the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim by 5,000%. Once the buyer’s identity was known, RZA stated he was unaware of Shkreli’s actions before the sale and donated much of the proceeds to charity.
Shkreli’s ownership led to further controversy. He threatened Ghostface Killah with harm and demanded a handwritten apology for calling him a “shithead.” In response, Ghostface released a video calling Shkreli a “fake supervillain.” Shkreli played snippets of the album during interviews but mainly for trolling purposes. He claimed he would leak the album if Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, but did not follow through.
Shkreli was eventually convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy, receiving a seven-year prison sentence and ordered to forfeit $7.3 million in assets. The government seized the album and sold it to an anonymous buyer to cover Shkreli’s debt.
Legal clauses stipulate that Once Upon a Time in Shaolin cannot be commercially released until 2103, 88 years from its completion in 2015.
To hear the album sooner, the current owner would need to release and distribute it for free. The first owner, Martin Shkreli, declined to do so, which brings us to now.
Thanks to the album’s current owners, the digital art collective Pleasr, Tasmanian museum Mona will present Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for a limited time only. Visitors to the museum can see the album on display, with limited access to public listening events set to be held in Mona’s Frying Pan Studios.
Who would have thought the first place to hear such a historic hip hop album would be Hobart?! Find out everything you need to know about the upcoming exhibition here.
