Wu-Tang Clan‘s 2015 album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is often branded the “world’s rarest album” considering only one physical copy of it was officially printed, and it is once again at the center of controversy over alleged violations of its exclusivity.
Upon finalizing their seventh LP, the legendary Staten Island group permanently deleted its digital masters to emphasize the implications of streaming and piracy in an age of weightless music. A bidding war for the item ensued soon after, with notorious “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli purchasing it for $2 million.
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Two years later, he was ordered to hand over the record by a federal court after being convicted of securities fraud. In 2021, PleasrDAO bought the elaborate silver-box package from the United States Department of Justice for $4 million in an effort to cover the businessman’s debt.
Earlier this year, they paid an addition $750,000 for “the copyrights in and exclusive right to exploit the recordings.”
On Tuesday (June 11), a federal judge temporarily barred Skreli from disseminating the project’s components after he was sued by its current owners for allegedly making copies of the record and playing it online for the public.
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Judge Pamela Chen has scheduled a hearing for June 25 in the civil suit.
According to the filing, the 41-year-old businessman apparently took to X (formerly Twitter) after PleasrDAO blocked him and hosted a Spaces session titled “Wu tang official listening party.”
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“During the Spaces session, Shkreli played music from the Album that any participant could hear. According to X, 4.9 thousand listeners ‘tuned in,'” the legal paperwork states.
“His pattern of bad behavior has gone on for a very long time, and a lot of it was directed against my client,” the plaintiff’s lawyer Steven Cooper told CNBC. “The fact that he retained copies [of the album] were violative of his forfeiture, and there could be consequences other than the civil complaint.”
Following through on their promise to make the album more accessible to the world, PleasrDAO have loaned Once Upon a Time in Shaolin to the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Australia for an exhibition called Namedropping.
The tracklist, which reportedly features every surviving member of the Wu-Tang Clan as well as Cher, will be played at the venue for free from June 15–24. Those who secure tickets will have access to a 30-minute edit of the album that will be played on a custom-made PlayStation by the rap veterans inside the Frying Pan recording studio.
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“Every once in a while, an object on this planet possesses mystical properties that transcend its material circumstances,” MONA’s director of curatorial affairs Jarrod Rawlins said about the upcoming event. “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is more than just an album, so when I was thinking about status, and what a transcendent namedrop could be, I knew I had to get it into this exhibition.”
The non-fungible token collectors added: “10 years ago, the Wu-Tang Clan had a bold vision to make a single copy album as a work of fine art. To ‘put it in an art gallery … make music become a living piece like a Mona Lisa or a sceptre from Egypt.’
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With this single work of art, the Wu-Tang Clan’s intention was to redefine the meaning of music ownership and value in a world of digital streaming and commodification of music.”
Described as “a 400-year-old Renaissance-style approach to music” by RZA, the two-CD set is not allowed to be used for any commercial purposes until 2103, per a legal agreement drafted at the time of its original sale.
