Wu-Tang’s Rare Copy Of “Once Upon A Time In Shaolin” Can Finally Be Heard—With A Catch

The nearly-mythical Wu-Tang Clan album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, is essentially folklore at this point.

The sole copy of the project has been passed around like a hot potato since falling into the hands of incarcerated “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli several years ago. But now, according to The Guardian, those willing to shell out the money to fly to Tasmania (yes, in Australia) can hear the album for the first time.

The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart has apparently acquired the album on loan from digital art collective Pleasr for its upcoming exhibition “Namedropping,” which will “explore status, celebrity and notoriety.” Its appearance at MONA will be the first time that the album has been loaned to a museum since the original sale.

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MONA will hold free, ticketed listening sessions from June 15-24, where members of the public can hear a “curated” 30-minute mix of the album, played from a personalized Wu-Tang PlayStation 1 inside MONA’s recording studio, Frying Pan.

“Every once in a while, an object on this planet possesses mystical properties that transcend its material circumstances,” Jarrod Rawlins, MONA’s director of curatorial affairs, said. “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.”

Pleasr said it was “honored” to partner with MONA to support RZA’s vision for the album. It said in a statement, “Ten 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. 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.”

Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, widely considered one of the most valuable albums ever made, was recorded in secret between 2006 and 2013 and lives in a decorative silver box. It reportedly features contributions from all surviving members of Wu-Tang Clan—and curiously, two appearances from Cher.

The album’s creation was an attempt at illustrating the impact of streaming and piracy on the value of music. Wu-Tang producers Cilvaringz and RZA once described it as “a 400-year-old Renaissance-style approach to music” and said they hoped by “offering it as a commissioned commodity” it would “inspire and intensify urgent debates about the future of music.”

The saga of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is comprised of many different chapters.

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 Paddle8 auction house the following. year. A legal agreement with the purchaser stipulated that the album couldn’t be commercially exploited for 88 years (2103), although it can be played at listening parties.

Shkreli was the winning bidder at $2 million to many people’s chagrin. RZA explained the sale was complete before Shkreli’s controversial price hike of the anti-infective agent Daraprim. After learning Shkreli was behind the purchase, RZA said Cilvaringz and the Wu-Tang Clan donated a “significant portion” of the proceeds to charity, including the Children’s Literacy Society, the Hip-Hop Chess Federation and TTAC, an institution focused on showcasing alternative cures for cancer.

In January 2016, Shkreli promised he’d release the album for free if Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election—which he did. After Trump was elected, Shkreli streamed excerpts of the album online. Shkreli then attempted to sell Once Upon a Time in Shaolin on eBay in September 2017, with the winning bid passing $1 million. But Shkreli was incarcerated on unrelated fraud counts before the sale could be finalized. RZA attempted to buy the album back, but he was contractually unable to at the time.

“I’ve actually tried to get it back but the paperwork and the contract stops me from getting it back,” he explained to Rolling Stone. “When [Shkreli] put it on eBay, the first thing I did was call my lawyer, and I was like, ‘Yo, let’s go.’ And they said, ‘All right, check with your contract.’ And it’s no, you can’t do it. Ain’t that a b####?”

Following Shkreli’s securities fraud conviction, a federal court seized Once Upon a Time in Shaolin along with his other assets. In July 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice sold it to non-fungible token collectors PleasrDAO for $4 million to cover his debts.