After spending years locked in a high-security vault in the Royal Mansour Hotel in Marrakech, Wu-Tang Clan’s highly coveted album ‘Once Upon a Time In Shaolin’ has been turned into an NFT. The record was initially released as a single physical copy in 2014, making it the rarest and most expensive album globally. The project, recorded in secret between 2006 and 2013, is said to feature contributions from all surviving members of Wu-Tang Clan and two guest appearances from Cher. It was housed in a silver, jewel-encrusted box, alongside leather-bound liner notes and a Wu-Tang Clan logo wax seal.
Following the royalty purchase, the initial 88-year security vault storage clause was extended, and no digital copies or streams of the album were made available for public usage or exploitation. Later in 2015, an edited 13-minute medley was played to around 50 art experts, fans, and interested buyers at an event at New York’s MoMa. In the same year, it underwent auction and was purchased by disgraced pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli for $2 million (£1.56m) despite the severe restrictions.
After Shkreli’s securities fraud conviction, his assets were seized, including the ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin’ album. The US Department of Justice proceeded to sell the record to PleasrDAO for $4 million (£3.1m) as part of the procedure to recover Shkreli’s debts. Up until recently, the exclusive album had remained untouched and could only be played at extreme caution, but now, the digitized and encrypted record has been converted into an NFT, which can be purchased for $1.
According to PleasrDAO, obtaining the NFT gives access to an album sampler, and it releases the record 88 seconds at a time. ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin’ producers RZA and Cilvaringz remarked on the album’s sale, stating: “Mass replication has fundamentally changed the way we view a piece of recorded music, while digital universality and vanishing physicality have broken our emotional bond with a piece of music as an artwork and a deeply personal treasure.” Matt Matkov, the PleasrDAO representative, added: “This album sale is more than just about the music; it’s about redefining how we think about ownership of music and fan collaboration in the digital age.”
The album is set to be exhibited in the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), Hobart, where the public can experience a carefully curated 30-minute sample of the record across ten days. This marks the first time the album has been loaned to a museum since its initial sale. The exhibition is titled ‘Namedropping’ and will feature the themes of status, celebrity, and notoriety. The exhibition is expected to feature “an object on this planet that possesses mystical properties that transcend its material circumstances,” according to Mona Director of Curatorial Affairs, Jarrod Rawlins
Read the full article on NME here: Read More