There is only one existing pressing of Wu-Tang Clan‘s ultra-rare recording Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The album was recorded in secret over the course of six years and sold to Martin Shkreli for $2 million in 2015, then to the digital art collective PleasrDAO for twice as much in 2021. Most music fans will never hear the record, which isn’t available digitally in any capacity — but select visitors to the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania, Australia, will be given the chance when the Namedropping exhibition opens in June.
From June 15 through 24, MONA’s Frying Pan Studios will play selections from Once Upon a Time in Shaolin during 30-minute listening sessions at the museum. These will be offered twice a day during the week-long display. “Final thing on the Wu-Tang bucket list, and probably the only chance you’ll ever get to hear it,” an Instagram post shared from MONA reads. “Run don’t walk, bring da ruckus, etc.”
Tickets will be free, but extremely limited. They will be made available at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 30.
The limited access to the exhibit, as well as the rarity of the album itself, reflects the core questions that Namedropping is rooted it. “Why are we drawn to certain objects and people? What makes the big names big: Porsche, Picasso or Pompidou? What is the nature of status and why is it useful?” a description from the museum’s official website asks. “Is it just culture, or is there something deeper? Do we have certain ways of caring that our distant ancestors shared, and maybe even benefitted from? Are our choices shaped by culture, or is our culture shaped by nature’s choices?”
In 2021, Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA expressed regret regarding his decision to sell Once Upon a Time in Shaolin to Shkreli, the notorious hedge fund and pharmaceutical executive.
“It was in the wrong hands in reality. He made the deal before it was revealed of his character, his personality, and all of the insidious things he would go on to do. That wasn’t the guy I met, but he definitely unfolded into that guy,” RZA told Hot 97 at the time, adding: “Now that PleasrDAO has it, there’s an opportunity that a lot these beautiful ideas of what this art can be and how it could expand itself in the world and in its own life of itself, I think the possibilities are there now.”
