The New Buyers of Wu-Tang Clan's 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' Album Paid $4 Million

Collective PleasrDAO aim to bring the 31-song LP to the public

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Oct 20, 2021

In late July, the United States government sold the lone copy of Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album — notably forfeited in 2018 by disgraced pharma executive Martin Shkreli — to an unknown buyer for an undisclosed sum. As promised, the new owners of Wu-Tang's one-of-a-kind album have been revealed.

The New York Times reports that Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is now owned by an online collective dubbed PleasrDAO, who acquired the album for "the equivalent of $4 million in a cryptocurrency tied to the dollar" in "a complex deal with multiple parties."

On their website, PleasrDAO describe themselves as "a collective of [decentralized finance] leaders, early NFT collectors and digital artists" united in "experimenting with novel concepts in digital and community art ownership." 

PleasrDAO's Jamis Johnson told The Times that Once Upon a Time in Shaolin "at its inception was a kind of protest against rent-seeking middlemen, people who are taking a cut away from the artist ... crypto very much shares that same ethos."

Lawyer Peter Scoolidge, who specializes in cryptocurrency and NFT deals and was involved in the transaction, shared with The Times that an NFT was created as the ownership deed for the physical album. PleasrDAO's 74 members share collective ownership of the NFT, and Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.

As owners, PleasrDAO's members are able to listen to the double-disc album's 31 tracks, but are still bound by the initial restrictions laid out by Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA and producer Cilvaringz, notably that Once Upon a Time in Shaolin cannot be released to the general public until the year 2103 — 88 years on from its initial 2015 sale.

The Times notes that PleasrDAO have "grand but loosely articulated ambitions" to bring the album to the wider public "perhaps through listening parties or gallery-style exhibitions, or even to expand ownership of the album to fans," though these plans remain incomplete. "Our direction right now," Johnson shared, "is to get this open to the whole world."

Martin Shkreli's time with Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was recently explored in new documentary Pharma Bro.

Earlier this year, Wu-Tang Clan announced a similarly ornate photo book, while RZA teased a new album as Bobby Digital.

Latest Coverage