Now that’s a headline you don’t expect to read (or write).
They say that “Wu-Tang is for the children,” but when it comes to the hip hop legends’ Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, Wu-Tang is only for a mysterious buyer with mad riches.
The United States Department of Justice sold the only existing copy of the legendary — yet still unheard — album to a mystery buyer as part of a “substitute asset in connection with the approximately $7.4 million forfeiture money judgment” against convicted hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli.
The buyer and the price paid for the album are remaining confidential.
“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,” says Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “With today’s sale of this one-of-a-kind album, his payment of the forfeiture is now complete.”
Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was created as a music/art project and was stored in a vault upon the album’s completion in 2013. The sale of the record made headlines around the globe and it still carries a lineage of restriction as to how — or how not — it can be exhibited and/or heard.
