Only a few days after the managers of rappers U-God and Method Man of Wu-Tang Clan publicly spoke out against the legitimacy of that rare Once Upon a Time in Shaolin double CD in the possession of defamed “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli, the now convicted felon has sold the artifact for $1,025,100. As indicated in the description, Shkreli was not attempting to make this sale because he was strapped for cash, but rather wanted to rid himself of the album he felt was becoming a burden.
According to Domingo Negris, manager of U-God, the project in question is not considered to be "an authorized Wu-Tang Clan album.”
James Ellis, Method Man’s manager doubled down on the claim, adding "When we did the verses, it was for a Cilvaringz album. How it became a Wu-Tang album from there? We have no knowledge of that."
Nonetheless, Martin still managed to get the CD off his hands for almost half of the $2 million price tag with he first acquired it.
UPDATE!
Martin Shkreli’s eBay sale of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is evidently incomplete. According to Matt “M-Eighty” Markoff, whose tenure in the Hip Hop game is decades deep, Shkreli was unable to officially finalize the sale before being booked into a federal Brooklyn jail last week.
The good news? Once Markoff, who routinely works with Wu-Tang, is able to secure the album, he plans to share it with the rest of us.
“I was the second highest bidder at 1,025,000 and he did not make arrangements for the sale before being arrested again,” Markoff told HipHopDX. “If he has any release time before his ultimate conviction and sentencing, that is when he and I will be finalizing the purchase agreement off eBay.”
He added, “I will be releasing the album to the world at large. ”
As indicated by eBay’s website, the bidding for Once Upon A Time In Shaolin closed on September 15 and a bid of $1,025,100 was deemed “the winning bid.”
So far, Shkreli’s signature has not made it to the paperwork.
[via Hot New HipHop & HipHopDX]