Martin Shkreli’s Wu-Tang Clan Album May Be a Fake
Once upon a time in New York, cartoon villain Martin Shkreli may have paid two million dollars for an album called Once Upon A Time In Shaolin that is not a Wu-Tang Clan album. At least that’s the message from U-God and Method Man, who probably know more about the Wu-Tang Clan than Martin Shkreli.
According to Bloomberg, U-God and Method Man both made statements that when they recorded their tracks for it, it was a Cilvaringz album. Cilvaringz, the producer, eventually brought RZA onboard. U-God’s manager alleged that the album was essentially outtakes from Cilvaringz’s other projects that he and RZA eventually threw together into a concept album.
“We’re very detailed about the quality and how we put our best foot forward,” Neris says. “We would never have authorized anyone to put together a project and call it a Wu-Tang Clan record without us ever looking at it, hearing it, or being in the same room together. That’s just the way these guys work.”
This is essentially all academic, if you ask me. It’s an album that has the Wu-Tang Clan all performing on it. That pretty much makes it a Wu-Tang Clan album, albeit an album akin to one of those Beatles albums they put together after John was killed that’s just outtakes and songs that weren’t good enough to go on an album. I know we all want Shkreli to have been screwed, and he does stand to lose almost a million dollars on the album, but this is, by definition, a Wu-Tang Clan album. Just probably not a very good one.
If there’s a silver lining to this story, it’s that prison hasn’t made Martin Shkreli any less of a douchebag. He gave this reply when asked for comment by Bloomberg:
Shkreli also declined to discuss Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. He responded to an email earlier this week with “hahahahahahahahahahahaha” before castigating Bloomberg LP, which publishes financial data and news. “Bloomberg is an overpriced, legacy software system that subsidizes a money-losing media company,” Shkreli wrote. “This state of affairs will soon change.”
Doesn’t everything this squirrelly little f**k says make you want to punch him in the face? I don’t want to joke about or glorify the basically inhumane conditions we keep prisoners in in this country, but I don’t think there’s any way Shkreli doesn’t get his nose broken by someone he mouthed off to in the next week or so, and I’m not going to have much sympathy for him if it does happen.