{"id":656864,"date":"2026-10-16T19:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T19:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/656864\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T19:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T19:54:08","slug":"method-man-hears-wu-tangs-once-upon-a-time-in-shaolin-for-1st-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/656864\/","title":{"rendered":"Method Man Hears Wu-Tang’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin’ for 1st Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMethod Man<\/a> recorded and sent in his contributions for Wu-Tang Clan\u2019s<\/a> Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album, but never listened to the completed version of the notorious album, which was recorded from 2007 to 2013. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat changed in the Friday (Oct. 16) episode of Pablo Finds Out, which hosted a listening of the one-of-one Wu LP in Brooklyn with a select group of people, including Method Man.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI can see why people would like it. I can see why some people would love it. For me, it had a few nostalgic moments on there. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s good or bad,\u201d Meth said. \u201cYou can tell [Cilvaringz] was emulating RZA\u2019s sound as much as possible to the point it got a little mimicky. A bit long sometimes, but that\u2019s what producers do, they\u2019re like, \u2018Look what I did.\u2019 All in all, I do not hate this album.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Staten Island native continued: \u201cRingz got lucky with a lot of them darts because they are so good. My guys sounded really good. [Raekwon] could\u2019ve stayed off the last joint, though \u2014 that\u2019s not his pace. Again, I can see why people would like this album. I could see why people would love this album. Cilvaringz did his thing with this album, his production was on par with some of the stuff RZA would do back in the day. I\u2019ll say it again, I don\u2019t hate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMethod Man admitted he has a \u201cchip on his shoulder\u201d about the album due to its muddied public history, being passed around from \u201cPharma bro\u201d Martin Shkreli, to the U.S. government seizing the album and now, art and crypto collective PleasrDAO has ownership of it. However, he went in with a non-biased approach to his first listen and didn\u2019t allow the past to taint his review. \u201cWe found out that album ain\u2019t as bad as I expected it to be,\u201d Meth concluded.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the 39-minute mark of the episode, fans can hear a snippet of one of Once Upon a Time\u2018s tracks featuring a smooth verse from Meth. \u201cNever tell on your team or take shorts when you\u2019re selling the beans\/ Catch a body that\u2019s a felony thing and every dream starts with C.R.E.A.M. that\u2019s on everything,\u201d he raps. <\/p>\n

\n\tWu-Tang recorded Once Upon a Time over the course of six years, with superfan-turned-producer Cilvaringz helming the production. He crafted a 31-track double-album with the Wu featuring assists from Redman<\/a> and Cher.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tLooking to challenge status quo of the music industry, Wu-Tang looked to make the album a one-of-one piece of fine art, rather than selling the album commercially. Shkreli, who was a pharmaceutical executive and former hedge-fund manager, purchased the elusive album for $2 million at a 2015 auction, which barred him from commercially distributing the LP for 88 years, until 2103.<\/p>\n

\n\tShkreli became known publicly as \u201cPharma bro\u201d as he came under scrutiny for raising the price of the drug Darapin by 5,000 percent. He was arrested in 2015 <\/a>for securities fraud and sentenced to seven years<\/a> behind bars. Once Upon a Time was among the assets seized by the federal government in the $7.3 million judgment.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYes, to be honest,\u201d RZA told People<\/a> of accepting Shkreli\u2019s involvement as part of the album\u2019s lore. \u201cYes. You got to accept that. Even though it\u2019s negative, you got to accept that. Because you know what? Look, maybe there was something negative in it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2021, PleasrDAO purchased<\/a> the album from the U.S. government for a reported price tag of $4 million to satisfy the judgment against Shkreli.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce Upon a Time in Shaolin is back in the spotlight thanks to the Netflix documentary The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable, <\/a>which premiered on Friday, and takes fans behind the album\u2019s creation with Cilvaringz.<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the full episode of Method Man listening to Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for the first time below. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Method Man recorded and sent in his contributions for Wu-Tang Clan\u2019s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,1805,61,60,278,633],"class_list":["post-656864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-genre-hiphop","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-music-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}