“ONCE UPON A TIME” IN EBAY

WU-TANG CLAN ALBUM “ONCE UPON A TIME IN SHAOLIN” PUT & SOLD ON EBAY

Martin Shkreli a.k.a the reason everyone hates big bankers, has placed the legendary one of a kind album (because only one copy exists) “Once Upon A Time In Shaolin” by the Wu-Tang Clan on EBay last week. Shkreli claims to be a huge fan of the Wu and bought the secretly recorded double-album back in 2015 after being the highest bidder through a Paddle8 auction. Strangely enough the album does have limitations in terms of how it’s played. The album can only be played during listening parties or streamed for free but no commercial gain must be made from it, nor can the album be used for any commercial processes.

The album had a great concept with the idea being that it would replicate the tangibility of music from classical eras; there would only be one copy so it would have to be purposely shared and could not be ignored. The proceeds of the sale even went to charities set up by producer and clan founder RZA. The problem in the hip-hop community was that Martin Shkreli was listed as the buyer. Shkreli had been exposed by media at that time for drastically hiking the price of the drug Daraprim, which is used for HIV medication.

Now in 2017, Shkreli has been charged with violating financial securities, basically a form of investment fraud and this past Wednesday sentenced to prison early while facing a 5 year sentence; if not the maximum 20. He was previously out on a $5 million bail but had it revoked over comments on social media asking people for a lock of Hilary Clinton’s hair. He had streamed the first two tracks of the album after Trump was elected President and reportedly placed it on EBay for sale last week. On the EBay page Shkreli claimed that he was not selling the album for money but mostly because he wouldn’t get to enjoy it in prison. Granted he also threatened to destroy the album, so maybe EBay was the better option.

When the album was sold to Shkreli, Bloomberg reported the final transaction being worth $2 million and now the album has been sold for $1,025,100.00 with over 300 people bidding on it.  Not much is known about the album still except that Cher is reportedly a feature on it. It’s so secretive that even the Wu-Tang members themselves were not sure where the album ended up before Shkreli was announced as the winning bidder in 2015.

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