Shkreli, Martin (1983- )

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    Pay $1 to Hear Wu-Tang Clan’s Secret Album (Eventually)

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    An online art collective that spent $4 million on “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” is telling fans their purchases will accelerate the one-of-a-kind album’s 2103 release date.Ten years ago, the most mysterious and expensive album of all time was announced by the Wu-Tang Clan as a protest against the devaluation of creativity in the age of the internet. “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” limited to one hyperdeluxe physical copy, was bought for a reported $2 million by the “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli and later acquired by an online art collective for $4 million.Now it can be yours for a dollar. Sort of.Pleasr, the online collective, began selling access to “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” on Thursday, charging fans $1 (plus fees) to be part of what it called an experiment to test a simple question: “Do people still value music in a digital era?” As befitting an album that has been wrapped in legal and public controversy for a decade, however, the transaction is anything but simple.For $1, fans will gain access to an encrypted digital version of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.” But only a five-minute sampler of the album will be available now, Pleasr says.The Wu-Tang Clan’s original sale contract with Shkreli in 2015 said that “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” could not be released to the public for 88 years — until Oct. 8, 2103 — although the agreement allowed for private viewings and listening sessions.“Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” was originally bought by Martin Shkreli, a pharmaceutical executive. When he was convicted of securities fraud, the federal government seized the album.Richard Drew/Associated PressFor each $1 that Pleasr takes in, the group says it will reduce the waiting period for the full album’s release by 88 seconds. By a rough calculation, it would take about 28 million contributions of $1 apiece to eliminate that delay entirely.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Wu-Tang Clan Album ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin’ Will Be Played in Tasmania

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      The sole known copy of the album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” was not to be heard by the public until 2103. Some fans will be able to hear a selection of the 31 tracks at a museum in Hobart, Tasmania.A decade ago, the Wu-Tang Clan issued a sole copy of a CD-only album, secured it in an engraved nickel and silver box, locked it away in a vault and said it could not be heard by the public until 2103.The move was seen as a protest against the devaluation of music in the streaming era. But a year later, the album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” got caught up in the very capitalistic endeavors that Wu-Tang had tried to avoid, when it was purchased by Martin Shkreli, the disgraced pharmaceutical speculator who was convicted of fraud in 2017.He bought the album at auction for $2 million, only for it to be seized by the government and sold in order to pay off Mr. Shkreli’s nearly $7.4 million debt.As these things go, an NFT collective purchased the album for $4 million in 2021. And soon, if you can get yourself to the island of Tasmania off the southern coast of Australia in two weeks’ time, you might be able to hear what RZA and the producer Cilvaringz created 79 years before it was meant to go public — or a part of it anyway.From June 15 to June 24, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania’s capital, will host a series of private listening events where visitors will be able to “experience” a selection of the 31 tracks from the group’s seventh studio album. “You hear talk about once-in-a-lifetime opportunities,” the museum wrote on the exhibit page. “This is probably one of them.”Free tickets, “if you are lucky enough to secure” them, the museum said, can be reserved starting Thursday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Pharma Bro’ Review: Behind the Smirk

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      This documentary grasps at straws trying to prove that the former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli might not be as loathsome as his reputation suggests.In the documentary “Pharma Bro,” the director Brent Hodge asks whether the former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli — who gained infamy for hiking the price of the drug Daraprim and was later convicted of fraud in an unrelated matter — really is as bad as his reputation suggests.Hodge has not obtained significant access to his subject. To prove the unfounded premise that there is more to Shkreli than meets the eye, he moves into Shkreli’s building and does his best to run into him. At one point, he drops by with some beers. He also engages in the time-honored investigative tactic of turning up with a camera at an office building, visiting a company Shkreli founded, Retrophin — and asking to see a P.R. person.The commentators are no more incisive. Hodge interviews a psychology professor who compares Shkreli to comic-book characters; Christie Smythe, who torpedoed her journalistic career after falling for Shkreli, in what an account in Elle suggested was a one-sided romance; the far-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos; and a Daraprim patient who explains how the price hike interfered with his ability to get medication — until Shkreli hooked him up personally, an experience the patient acknowledges was exceptionally lucky. Two reporters who covered Shkreli for The New York Times also weigh in.“Pharma Bro” presents one specious argument after another on Shkreli’s behalf: that “nobody” cared about possible fraud and that authorities pursued those charges more aggressively because of Shkreli’s notoriety. That Shkreli was running companies at such a young age that he had no one to point out wrongdoing. Hodge is not always on Shkreli’s side, but he appears convinced he’s made a well-rounded portrait, as opposed to a dubious, bottom-feeding, bro-to-bro testimonial.Pharma BroNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More