![]() ![]() ![]() we hope to inspire and intensify urgent debates about the future of music." By adopting a 400 year old Renaissance-style approach to music, offering it as a commissioned commodity and allowing it to take a similar trajectory from creation to exhibition to sale. Contemporary art is worth millions by virtue of its exclusivity. "The intrinsic value of music has been reduced to zero. "The music industry is in crisis," they explain on their website. Instead, inspired by the success of Nipsey Hussle's $100 mixtape, Cilvaringz and RZA landed on the idea of treating Once Upon A Time In Shaolin as a priceless art object. "It took a long time," Cilvaringz admitted when he was finally finished, he couldn't abide the thought of releasing it and "see it die after a week". The entire Clan appears on the record, plus Redman, "FC Barcelona soccer players" and a singer called Bonnie Jo Mason - thought to be an alias for Cher. Though Cilvaringz first met RZA in 1997, jumping on stage during an Amsterdam Wu-Tang gig, this project began about five years ago. "One leak of this thing nullifies the entire concept," Cilvaringz said. Visitors will pay for admission and then be permitted to listen to Wu-Tang's new songs on closely monitored headphones. Before selling the album for a price "in the millions", they hope to tour the one-of-a-kind object, in its Yahya-designed box, to venues like the Tate Modern. "I know it sounds crazy," Cilvaringz told Forbes. But the songs will never be sold on iTunes and even the most ardent fans may never have a chance to hear it. It "encapsulates the Clan’s legendary dark funk and avant garde sound and is produced in the original Wu Tang style of the 90s," they wrote on a new website. The 128-minute, 31-song double-album is apparently sitting in a Moroccan vault, enclosed in a hand-carved nickel-silver box. ![]() In August 2020, the Wu-Tang leader reportedly began production on a film about the album’s convoluted existence for Netflix.Unlike the Wu-Tang Clan's troubled A Better Tomorrow album, which is due for wide release later this year, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin is already finished. Of course, just because only one copy of the album exists and can’t be monetized for 100 years, doesn’t mean RZA won’t try to make some money off it anyway. When he was sentenced to seven years in prison, the government appropriated the project for the purpose of auctioning it off to pay his debts. When Shkreli was convicted in 2018 for SEC violations, he played the album while talking about it and tried to sell it on eBay to avoid forfeiting it as part of his sentence. The album was purchased by Shkreli in 2015 with the caveat that it couldn’t be commercially exploited for nearly 100 years. The album first made waves in 2014 when it was announced that only one copy of the album would be auctioned off, incensing group members like Method Man. A confidentiality provision in the sale contract protects information about the buyer and price. According to the Justice Department, the sole copy of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin was sold off to pay off the $7.4 million forfeiture judgment against Shkreli for his 2018 conviction on securities fraud. ![]() The mythic Wu-Tang Clan album once purchased for an exorbitant sum by “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli has finally been sold after being seized by the US government. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |