The Wu-Tang Clan is arguably the most influential and magnanimous hip-hop group of all time that ranks almost as high on all-time music group lists. As such, it's no surprise that they can get away with some truly historic, controversial, and above all unique ideas. Moreover, they just "released" their album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin via the record's current owner Pleasr, who also announced that the album would have various listening parties around the world. However, if you are unfamiliar with this mythical album from the Wu, then you have some catching up to do before considering a purchase.
Furthermore, this is a pretty long and complicated story, but basically, the Wu-Tang Clan revealed a single physical copy of the album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin with no digital equivalents in 2015, meant to be in the hands of a single buyer. Former pharma tycoon and societal villain Martin Shkreli bought it for $2 million, but he wasn't allowed to reproduce the album, share it, or profit from it until the year 2103, per the stipulations in their contract. After Shkreli's arrest for security fraud, the project fell into the U.S. government's hands as the result of an asset seizure.
Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon A Time In Shaolin
Then, the NFT company PleasrDAO bought the album in 2021 for about $4 million, and didn't do much with it until these new agreements to host limited listening parties of partial parts of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin. In addition, new negotiations with the Wu-Tang Clan also resulted in the album's partial release as an NFT, with each $1 USD purchase yielding a five-minute snippet from the LP. Each individual purchase apparently "speeds up" the wide commercial release date of 2103 for the album. As you might imagine, it'll take a lot of purchases to "unlock" the mythical project.
But if you want to hear a bit of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin for a dollar, check out the tweet above. There's also more lore to learn about the album, such as PleasrDAO's current legal battle against Martin Shkreli for playing unauthorized copies of the project. Overall, it seems like a massive but respectably honor-bound hassle to go through for a record. But it's the Wu-Tang Clan; haven't they earned that legend status?