Once Upon a Time in Shaolin... by Wu‐Tang Clan
Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is the seventh studio album by the American hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan. Only one physical copy of the album was created, with no ability to download or stream it digitally. Purchased directly from the Wu-Tang Clan in 2015, it became the most expensive work of music ever sold. The album was recorded in secret over six years. A single two-CD copy was pressed in 2014 and stored in a secured vault at the Royal Mansour Hotel in Marrakech, Morocco, then auctioned through auction house Paddle8 in 2015. A legal agreement with the purchaser stipulated that the album cannot be commercially exploited until 2103, although it can be played at listening parties. The winning bidder was Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who paid a reported $2 million. In March 2018, following Shkreli's conviction for securities fraud, a federal court seized assets belonging to him, including Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. In July 2021, the US Department of Justice sold it to non-fungible token collectors PleasrDAO for $4 million to cover Shkreli's debts; PleasrDAO said they hoped to make it more widely accessible. Recording Wu-Tang Clan began working on Once Upon a Time in Shaolin in the late 2000s with producer Cilvaringz. It took about six years to complete, and was recorded mostly in Staten Island, New York, and produced in Marrakech, Morocco. It features the entire Wu-Tang Clan, plus rapper Redman, the Wu-Tang Killa Beez, FC Barcelona soccer players, Game of Thrones actress Carice van Houten, and two appearances from Cher.
<b>100 Best Albums</b> In 1993, the Wu-Tang Clan were a grim, grimy, grindhouse alternative to G-funk’s baroque gangsta cinema: If Dr. Dre’s lush, lowrider-ready grooves were <i>Terminator 2</i>, then the scratchy, bloody, distorted productions of RZA on their debut album were <i>Reservoir Dogs</i>. Emerging from New York City’s most underrepresented borough—the literal island of Staten—here was a sound that, by nature or nurture, existed in its own raw, unapologetic bubble: corroded soul breaks, snatches of dialogue and sound effects from arcane turn-of-the-’70s Hong Kong kung fu flicks, distended keyboard lines, tape noises, snaps and stutters.<br /> Wu-Tang emerged as a nine-member crew in the post-MTV age of small cliques, a mix of styles and voices that eventually carried more than a few solo careers: The violent beat poetry of Raekwon, Ghostface Killah and Inspectah Deck; the drunken sing-to-scream ping-pong of Ol’ Dirty Bastard; the $5 words and scientific flows of GZA and Masta Killa; the boisterous coaching of RZA; the gritty rasp of U-God; and the fame-ready slick talk of Method Man, who was already getting a star turn on his eponymous track. Though melancholy reminiscences like “Can It Be All So Simple”, “C.R.E.A.M.” and “Tearz” made a trilogy of evocative narratives, the Wu provided few easy inroads to their mythology and poetry. Instead, America was forced to enter <i>their</i> chamber, a lyrical swarm of hip-hop slang, the Five-Percent Nation’s Supreme Mathematics and skits that sounded like taped conversations. They brought a singular ruckus and everyone from the similarly crew-oriented Odd Future, the wordy Logic, the mafioso-fuelled Pusha T, the wild-styled Young Thug and the noisy Sheck Wes all owe different types of gratitude.
