SYDNEY — American hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan’s groundbreaking album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” began playing at an Australian museum on Saturday, organizers said, with fans in attendance describing the music as “very special” and “amazing.”
All time slots for the twice-a-day sessions at the Museum of Old and New Art Tasmania have sold out, and about 5,000 people are on the waiting list. The museum is exhibiting single-print albums from June 15 to 24.
“These are small sessions, with about 30 people attending,” a museum spokesperson said, confirming that the first listening session would begin on Saturday afternoon.
The album, of which there is only one physical copy in the world, has a storied history, having been purchased by convicted pharmaceutical company executive Martin Shkreli in 2015 for $2 million.
Shkreli left the company under a $7.4 million forfeiture order after pleading guilty in 2017 to a scheme to defraud hedge fund investors and defraud investors in a pharmaceutical manufacturer.
It is now owned by non-fungible token collectors PleasureDAO, who bought the album from the U.S. government for $4 million. PleasureDAO has also sued Shkreli for making copies of the album and releasing the music to the public.
Music fan Cameron McBride, from Queensland’s capital Brisbane, described listening to the album as “very special”.
“I don’t know of any song or album anywhere in the world that holds as much significance as this album,” McBride told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Another attendee, Hayden Kovacic, from Hobart, said it was “amazing” to be one of the few people to have heard the album.
“It was really hectic. The production was very intense,” Kovacik told ABC.
According to the album’s official website, the album consists of 31 new tracks that the New York-based group recorded and produced “in the original Wu-Tang style of the 90s” over the six years since 2007.
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