This Wu-Tang Clan Fan Wrote an Epic 70-Page Script About Stealing 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' From Martin Shkreli

A super-dedicated fan of the Wu-Tang Clan named Jordan VanDina penned an epic, 70-page script about stealing the group's new album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. As you may have heard, the one-of-a-kind album was finished some time ago, and was recently sold tonotorious douchebag/AIDS drug price-hiker Martin Shkreli for a cool $2 million. The contract stipulates that the album cannot be released to the public for 88 years, meaning almost nobody alive today will live to hear it.

VanDina, not content to let the Wu's work waste away in the clutches of America's most hated CEO, decided to write a ridiculous and hilarious script in which the album (billed as the last good music ever recorded) is needed to save the world from the two-term presidency of Donald Trump. Along with Wu-Tang members, Shkreli, and the Donald himself, the script also includes appearances by Kim Jung-Un, Michael Jordan, and Justin Bieber. As if this weren't awesome enough, the whole thing is narrated by none other than Morgan Freeman. While we're all out here hoping that this will happen in real life (or at least that the script gets a movie deal), you can read VanDina's work in its entirety by downloading here or reading here. 

[via COMPLEX]

Wu-Tang Clan Gave Bill Murray Permission To Steal Their $2 Million LP

UPDATE: It turns out that it really is too good to be true. Multiple reports are pouring in that the supposed contract image is a hoax. Bill Murray is almost certainly not written into a specific contract regarding the legal theft of a top-secret rap album owned by an asshole. We’re now going to give up blogging and go hunt that Jaguar Shark.

Once Upon A Time In Shaolin is the hip-hop mystery that just refuses to die, and now, after yesterday’s depressing news that the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album wassold to a man who’s the human equivalent of a flaming heap of garbage, a beacon of hope has appeared on the horizon. And that beacon is Bill Murray.

Multiple outlets are reporting on a very unorthodox clause written into the sellers contract between The Wu-Tang Clan and Martin Shkreli, who purchased the album back in May for $2 million. Shkreli made news earlier this year after he purchased a life-saving pharmaceutical drug, only to raise its price by 5550%, and suffice to say that many (us included) were disappointed to learn that he’s the guy who owns the only evidence of this chapter in Wu-Tang history. What’s more, the album can’t be released to the public for another 88 years. However, according to a legal contract, “The buying party [Shkreli] also agrees that at any time during the stipulated 88 year period, the seller may legally plan and attempt to execute one (1) heist or caper to steal back Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, which, if successful, would return all ownership rights to the seller.”

It goes on to read: “Said heist or caper can only be undertaken by currently active members of the Wu-Tang Clan and/or actor Bill Murray, with no legal repercussions.”

Yes. Hells yes. You’re reading that right. Bill Murray has specific legal permission to attempt to steal Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, heist-style, from Martin Shkreli. If he so chooses, he can even call in RZA, GZA, Ghostface Killah and the entire Wu-Tang Clan to be his entourage. The world might be coming apart at the seams, but the thought of Steve Zissou/Peter Venkman/Carl Spackler pulling a crime caper in the name of hip-hop justice sure does warm our heart.

(And if this all turns out to be a hoax, we’re going to give up on everything and just go chase after the Jaguar Shark.)

[via OkayPlayer]

Wu-Art Thursday #175

Sad Supervillain Martin Shkreli Bought That Top Secret Wu-Tang Album

I offer my deepest apologies to Wu-Tang fans. The buyer of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, a record-slash-art-project of which only a single copy will ever be sold, is now owned by a huge douchebag. The millionaire buyer’s identity has been revealed as pill price gouger Martin Shkreli.

Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the pharmaceutical executive bought the latest Wu-Tang Clan album for $2 million. (According to RZA a “significant portion of the proceeds go to charity.”) Shkreli apparently made his offer before the national outrage over his raising the price of Daraprim, a lifesaving medication for HIV patients, from $13.50 to $750 a tablet. Wu-Tang and Paddle8, the auction house that brokered the deal, understandably felt unnerved once it was revealed that the album’s buyer was actually a human cesspool who values profits over human lives.

“I was a little worried that they were going to walk out of the deal,” Shkreli told the magazine. “But by then we’d closed. The whole kind of thing since then has been just kind of ‘Well, do we want to announce it’s him? Do we not want to announce it’s him?’ I think they were trying to cover their butts a little bit.”

LOL? Again, news of the Daraprim controversy broke a little too late to derail Shkreli’s purchase of the mystical album that the public might never hear. It came after Shkreli had lunch with RZA. (“We didn’t have a ton in common,” Shkreli said of the meeting. “I can’t say I got to know him that well, but I obviously like him.”) The one-of-a-kind record came in a hand-carved box along with a set of $50,000 speakers for listening. But guess what: Shkreli hasn’t listened to it yet.

“I could be convinced to listen to it earlier if Taylor Swift wants to hear it or something like that,” said the 32-year-old supervillain. “But for now, I think I’m going to kind of save it for a rainy day.”

This, from the same guy who wants to buy dates with celebrities.

This guy. Then again, it’s sort of the perfect twist. Wu-Tang is legendary for turning our expectations of music and capitalism on its head. So what if the man who embodies the worst of what free markets can do owns a monopoly on the group’s latest and perhaps greatest work? At least it’s a hell of a saga.

[via GIZMODO]

Ghostface Killah Takes Over The Weeknd's "Tell Your Friends" For A New Remix

British Photographer Seeking To Create Wu-Tang Clan’s 37th Chamber

Photographer Eddie Otchere raising funds to create a 37th Chamber photography exhibit.

Photographer Eddie Otchere, who has captured the likes of The Notorious B.I.G.and Mary J. Blige, is hoping to bring the Wu-Tang Clan’s 37th Chamber to life. The photographer has created a Kickstarter campaign that will help in raising funds for the creation of the chamber.

The chamber, which will serve as a Wu-Tang Clan photography exhibit, will feature 10 exhibition prints housed in a custom-made wood chamber.

Otchere has set a goal of approximately $8,324 for the exhibit. The money raised during the fundraiser will go to exhibition prints, wood and materials for the chamber, as well as labor.

“In March 2016, in this very room here, in Brixton East, We’re gonna build—and when I say ‘we,’ me, you – together we are gonna build the thirty-seventh chamber of the Wu-Tang," Otchere says in his Kickstarter video. "All 10 emcees together. I want them to be in one space. I want this to be the thirty-seventh chamber of the Wu. Because photography is about time, is about recording. And sometimes you don’t really understand what’s happened until 20 years later.”

If the fundraising goal for the 37th Chamber exhibit is reached, the chamber is scheduled to be opened in Brixton East in March 2016.

[via HIPHOPDX]

Method Man - The Purple Tape ft. Raekwon, Inspectah Deck (Official Music Video)

Method Man teams up with  Raekwon and Inspectah Deck to drop off the official video for ‘The Purple Tape’ off his latest album The Meth Lab which was released back in August.

Wu-Art Thursday #174

Wu-Tang Clan’s Secret Album Has Finally Been Sold

In two separate pieces this week, FORBES broke the news that the Wu-Tang Clan had sold its secret album to an unknown bidder. Today, new details are beginning to emerge.

According to a release by Paddle8, the upstart auction house that sold the double-album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin has been sold to a “private American collector” for a price “in the millions.” The sale was agreed upon in May, but it took months to finalize contracts and legal protections for the unusual record.

“The Wu-Tang Clan have always been driven by innovation, and this marks another moment in musical history,” said Wu-Tang cofounder RZA in the statement, adding that the group would donate a significant portion of the proceeds to charity. “From the beginning, we hoped that this concept would inspire debate and new ways of seeing creativity. Both of those goals have been achieved, and the ideas continue to evolve.”

Though the precise amount of the sale has not been revealed, Paddle8 says it makes Once Upon A Time In Shaolin the most expensive single album ever sold, topping Jack White’s $300,000 purchase of a rare acetate recording of Elvis Presley’s first song.

“We pioneered a new type of intellectual property regarding the sale of a work that is simultaneously physical and digital, creating previously unexplored legal protections for a unique work that cannot be reproduced,” added Paddle8 cofounder Alexander Gilkes. “This marks an exciting new model of distribution for the music world and we look forward to playing an ongoing role in this innovative model.”

[via FORBES]

RIP ODB - 11 years ago today

Eleven years ago rapper O.D.B., a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan whose erratic behavior and incessant legal troubles made him a figure as wild as his lyrics, collapsed and died inside a recording studio at age 35.

O.D.B. had recently finished a prison sentence for drug possession and escaping a rehab clinic. He had complained of chest pains before collapsing Saturday, and was dead by the time paramedics arrived, said Gabe Tesoriero, a spokesman for O.D.B.’s record label, Roc-a-Fella.

**UNRELEASED TRACK -- "OBEY ME" by Ol' Dirty Bastard (Shash'U Remix)

Earlier this year, RZA was exploring the archives of tapes stashed at the Wu Mansion when he came across the unreleased ODB recording.

Wu-Art Thursday #173