{"id":656111,"date":"2026-10-24T22:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T22:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/656111\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T22:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T22:46:14","slug":"wu-tang-clan-sold-an-album-as-an-artwork-a-new-doc-tells-the-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/656111\/","title":{"rendered":"Wu-Tang Clan Sold an Album as an Artwork\u2014A New Doc Tells the Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf you were on the internet in 2015, you likely followed the twisty tale of the Wu-Tang Clan<\/a>\u2018s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The Staten Island hip-hop titans conceived of the album as a conceptual artwork, a protest against the cheapening of music in the age of widespread piracy. Rather than release the music to the general public, the work was sold <\/a>at auction for a reported $2 million to a then-anonymous American buyer, seemingly proving that music could sell at the level of Picasso and Warhol.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt proved a Pyrrhic victory when the buyer was revealed to be the hated \u201cpharma bro\u201d Martin Shkreli. The episode was a bitter lesson for the group, resulting in resentment and division. Even Clan member Method Man said, \u201cFuck that album. \u2026 When music can\u2019t be music and y\u2019all turning it into something else, fuck that. Give it to the people, if they want to hear the shit, let them have it. Give it away free.\u201d (He somewhat softened <\/a>his stance recently, on finally hearing the album.)<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Wu-Tang<\/p>\n

\n\tA new Netflix documentary, The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable (2026), presents a long and shaggy ride through the experience. Directed by producer Joanna Natasegara and featuring RZA as an executive producer, the film proves a frustrating watch: no one involved seems to, even now, have thought much about the lessons from their attempt to hijack the art market, a sometimes unpredictable world they blundered into, seeming to know little about it while somehow assuming that\u2019s where the big money was. \u201cContemporary art is worth millions by virtue of its exclusivity,\u201d said the band at the time. Of course, a vanishingly small percentage of artworks of any era are priced at that level, but maybe their misconception is understandable, since the members\u2019 art world reference points, at least judging by the way they are quoted in the film, seem to be restricted to Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, and Warhol.<\/p>\n

\n\tMany of the art world\u2019s denizens could have warned them away from the stunt. Funnily enough, in 2017, during the whole dustup, Richard Prince disavowed<\/a> an artwork he had sold to Ivanka Trump before her father\u2019s entry into politics. Of course, by then it was too late to warn RZA.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe album\u2019s sale is mentioned in the opening sequence, with audio of an unidentified interviewer calling it \u201cone of the coolest stories in art history.\u201d RZA explains the thinking: \u201cWe\u2019ll make one single copy of the album, treat it like it\u2019s the Mona Lisa. It was a combination of ideas that led to it. Me and my student Cilvaringz\u2014won\u2019t take all the credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWould you ever do it again?\u201d asks the interviewer.<\/p>\n

\n\tSays the rapper, in a loaded two-letter word, \u201cUm \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tThe Shaggy Tale of an Unfolding Mess\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film then doesn\u2019t mention the album again for a full 55 minutes, instead plunging the viewer at great length into the life story of Dutch-Moroccan rapper-producer Tarik Azzougarh, one of the masterminds of the project, including his traumatic childhood experiences of racism and abuse.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director found him compelling, she explains in press materials: \u201cOver a long lunch in beautiful Marrakech, where he lived, Tarik told me the twists and turns of the album\u2019s 30-year story, and I was fascinated. It wasn\u2019t only a great story; it resonated with me personally as someone who grew up in the \u201990s with mixed heritage. The Wu-Tang Clan often talk about being teenagers inspired by East Asian culture through movies, while Tarik and his friends had, in turn, been inspired by the Clan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTarik Azzougarh in The Disciple. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Netflix \u00a9 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, for my money, Azzougarh doesn\u2019t ultimately prove a compelling presence on screen. \u201cI figured that a doc would show my side of the story,\u201d Azzougarh tells the off-camera director early on, in a characteristically not-quite-electrifying observation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film slowly relates that the aspiring rapper and superfan ingratiated himself into the band\u2019s circles, flying to New York multiple times as a teenager for the purpose. He earned the sobriquet Cilvaringz and membership in the Killa Beez, a network of musicians in the extended Wu-Tang family, releasing his own records on their imprint as well as producing some of the Clan\u2019s albums.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce Upon a Time was packaged in a custom handcrafted silver box and traveled with all the pomp and security of a seven-figure artwork, as the film shows. Only one copy will ever legally exist, in a protest against the loss of music\u2019s aura in the age of its digital reproducibility, to paraphrase German philosopher Walter Benjamin. The band sold the record via online auctioneer Paddle8<\/a> in 2015, with the stipulation that the buyer could not release it commercially for 88 years, though they could play it at listening parties.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tWu-Tang\u2019s 2015 album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Netflix \u00a9 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tIn keeping with the fine art theme, the band staged a listening event at MoMA PS1, after which Complex<\/a> described the record as \u201crich, layered, and sonically bombastic,\u201d with a \u201crugged, hard-hitting sound\u201d reminiscent of early Wu-Tang Clan albums. Writing for ARTnews<\/a>, a slightly more skeptical Dan Duray noted, \u201cThere were plenty of unexpected samples, melodramatic horns, cheesy bits of kung-fu dialogue.\u201d Snippets are audible in the documentary.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen Shkreli was arrested, and some of the film\u2019s funnier moments come with the discussion of Wu-Tang\u2019s attempts to find a way to reverse the sale and get the music to the people, including a rumored clause in the contract by which either Clan members or actor Bill Murray could legally steal the record back.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2018, Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy, and the Department of Justice sold the record <\/a>to help pay his reparations. In 2021, it sold, for some $4 million, to digital art and crypto collective PleasrDAO, in whose hands it remains today. The group\u2019s late founder<\/a>, Jamis Johnson, said in 2021 that \u201cthere\u2019s not a world in which we don\u2019t own this album.\u201d The group has organized several listening events, at venues from the Museum of Old and New Art <\/a>in Tasmania to the Angel Orensanz Center, housed in a 175-year-old former synagogue in New York.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSilversmith Yahya, right, in The Disciple. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Netflix \u00a9 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tSo now Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, with all its contradictions and challenges, is PleasrDAO\u2019s problem. In a video interview with ARTnews, the collective\u2019s \u201cchief pleasing officer,\u201d Jamis\u2019s brother Adrian Johnson, outlined the tricky position in which the group finds itself.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe don\u2019t want the record to be streamed,\u201d he said. \u201cThe moment it is, it becomes another album.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe went on, \u201cEverything about it is a paradox: it\u2019s for the people, but it\u2019s also highly guarded. It\u2019s quite a difficult job as stewards of this art to say, \u2018How can we bring it to the people but not devalue it?,\u2019 and I don\u2019t believe that keeping it locked away is right. I also don\u2019t believe making it freely available is right. So we are constantly looking for creative ways to share this with the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor future activations, keep an eye on a dedicated website<\/a>, and tune in to Netflix for the documentary, but don\u2019t hold out for too much excitement. I give it a passing grade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you were on the internet in 2015, you likely followed the twisty tale of the Wu-Tang Clan\u2018s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409,295140,102925],"class_list":["post-656111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music","tag-paddle8","tag-wu-tang-clan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}