Someone else now owns Martin Shkreli’s one-of-a-kind Wu Tang Clan album—thanks to the U.S. government
The DOJ announced that the record was sold to an undisclosed buyer
Music News Martin Shkreli
We know it’s likely that you had forgotten who Martin Shkreli is. It’s been nearly a year since he last made headlines when journalist Christie Smythe came forward about their relationship; she explained how she fell in love with him after wrote extensively about the rich troll. Unfortunately, we’re now talking about Shkreli again—but, thankfully, this time it’s because of some form of justice.
Back in 2018, the government made Shkreli hand over his one-of-a-kind Wu Tang Clan album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, even though Shkreli said he had sold it on Ebay for $1 million after being incarcerated. But even if it was actually sold by him, it looks like the album was retrieved. Now, it’s been sold by the government.
Today, Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, the acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced that the copy of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin was bought by a secret buyer for an undisclosed price. “Through the diligent and persistent efforts of this Office and its law enforcement partners, Shkreli has been held accountable and paid the price for lying and stealing from investors to enrich himself. With today’s sale of this one-of-a-kind album, his payment of the forfeiture is now complete,” she says in a press statement.
What makes this record that Shkreli purchased in 2015 so rare is that it also comes in a hand-carved box with a leather-bound manuscript containing the lyrics to the album. Wu Tang didn’t make other copies of the record, so whoever has the physical copy would be the only person who gets access to the iconic group’s LP. We just hope that whoever owns it now isn’t an asshole (even our former president was horrified by Shkreli’s past moves from the asshole playbook).
Shkreli was convicted of fraud in 2017 after mishandling two hedge funds he ran—MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare—and additionally for conspiring to commit securities fraud. He’s currently in the middle of serving a 7-year prison sentence. He became known as “Pharma Bro” for hiking up the prices of essential medicines.
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Although it’s spelled out here in this very article, always important to connect the dots and zero in on the very important fact that Shkreli’s conviction had nothing to do with jacking up the price of life saving drugs, which was a perfectly legal thing to do, and could easily happen again (and to lesser degrees is probably already happening, every single day) unless we fix our healthcare system.
pft, how you gonna outbid Big Pharma lobbyists? With morals? Pft
Nothing will land you in prison faster than stealing from rich people.Except maybe being black.
That explains why there’s more white people in prison.
Yeah, it’s noteworthy that the thing that everyone is horrified by is something every major pharmaceutical company does every day. No one is selling drugs at cost, or even with enough of a profit margin to sustain the company. In fact, because of the way the laws are written in this country, if you’re not marking up those drugs enough, you can be sued by your shareholders.
Shkreli became the poster boy for rich jackassery because 1.) he was spectacularly sloppy about obscuring his financials, and 2.) when you put a human face on our corporate culture, it turns out that guy is a psychopath.
unless we fix our healthcare system.
But something, something free markets
Exactly. Let’s bring actual free markets to healthcare.
“And he disrepected the Wu-Tang Clan.” should be carved on his headstone.
He Tried to Carve a 37th Chamber
In the Showtime doc they refer to the music on the album as total trash. It’s mostly Cilverings solo album, and I believe it features versus by soccer players from FC Barcelona and the actress that played Melisandra on GOT. It was basically an attempt at performance art to auction it off, RZA pretty much admitted as much. Unfortunately now they will forever be associated with this low-life.
Was coming here to make sure this was noted. Good job.Most of the Wu said they had no idea it was even gonna be labelled a Wu album and basically came in to drop features. They weren’t bringing their A-game.
Which Barca players? Because if that’s true, a whole lot of them could afford to buy this so no one will every hear their lame attempts at music.
From Wiki, so take it with a grain of salt but I’ve read it from more than one source: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 CherOof, I seriously couldn’t tell if it was a joke but it one of those things that is so specific that it’s hard to imagine someone made it up.
It also features Cher. And not like a sample, Cher went into the studio and recorded material for the album.
Gypsies, Tramps, and Wallabeeees
Now it shall be returned to its rightful owners in the Dengfeng Shaolin Temple in the Henan province and order will be restored to the universe.
bong bong
We just hope that whoever owns it now isn’t an assholeWhat are the odds that anyone who had the kind of money this would sell for and would throw it away on this album isn’t an asshole?
About as likely that said album is full of cringe worthy 5 percenter references.
We had the album and didn’t even know. Our government. That album, as bad as it might be, needed to be released to the masses who funded the damn prosecution. Or given back to RZA. That would have been nice. There has been zero good news in 2021. Every year since 2015 has only gotten worse.
is there a better example of cultural appropriation than wu tang?
Someone should sew his asshole closed and just keep feedin him and feedin him…
The best part of this article is that it reminded me he’s in jail.
But is he in like ‘Everyone wants to shank you’ jail?or‘This is just like a country club you can’t leave’ jail?
Can the world please stop covering this guy so I no longer have to look at his face?
Apropos of nothing —> Hello. Am currently drunk on beer. Am listening to Dinosaur Jr 🙂 Okay, Over/Out.
I guess someone had all the dollar dollar bills y’all
‘Carceration Rules Everything Around Martin.
You know someone is a smug, rich, evil asshole when Former President Creamsicle is dunking on them.
I’m just waiting for Skrelletor to reveal that he is selling an NFT of this album for enough money to simultaneously start a new hedge fund and destroy capitalism through sheer disgust.
Who was this undisclosed buyer? You guessed it. Frank Stallone!
Look, if we’ve learned anything, it’s that Wu Tang clan ain’t nothing to fuck with.
I hope whoever has it shares it.