US hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album Once Upon A Time in Shaolin on Saturday began playing at an Australian museum, organizers said, with fans in attendance describing the music as “very special” and “amazing.”
All timeslots for the twice-a-day sessions at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art are sold out, with about 5,000 people on a waiting list. The museum is showcasing the single-print album from Saturday to Monday next week.
“They’re small sessions, they’re about 30 people,” said a museum spokesperson, who confirmed the start of the first listening session on Saturday afternoon.
Photo: US Marshals Service via Reuters
The album, which has just one physical copy in the world, has a storied history, having been bought by the convicted pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli in 2015 for US$2 million.
Shkreli gave it up to as part of a US$7.4 million forfeiture order after his 2017 conviction for defrauding hedge fund investors and scheming to defraud investors in a drugmaker.
It is now owned by non-fungible token collectors PleasrDAO who purchased the album for US$4 million from the US government. PleasrDAO is also suing Shkreli for making copies of the album and releasing the music to the public.
Music fan Cameron McBryde, who had traveled from Queensland’s capital, Brisbane, described hearing the album as “very special.”
“I don’t know another song or album anywhere else in the world that holds that same value that this one does like that,” McBryde told the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC).
Hayden Kovacic, from Hobart, said it was “amazing” to be one of so few to get to listen to the album.
“It was actually hectic,” Kovacic told the ABC. “The production was off its head.”
The album consists of 31 original tracks recorded and produced by the New York-based group over six years from 2007 “in the original Wu-Tang style of the 90s,” according to the album’s official Web site.
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