As promised, the buyers of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon A Time In Shaolin album have been revealed. PleasrDAO is a group of self-described “DeFi leaders, early NFT collectors, and digital artists” that like to “acquire culturally significant pieces with a humanitarian bent.” The one-of-a-kind CD, which was purchased for $2 million by “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli in 2015, certainly fits the bill. The album, which RZA worked on in secret for six years, was auctioned off as a type of high-art prank after just a few people heard it.
Of course, after his 2018 conviction for securities fraud, Shkreli lost control of the record, which was seized by the US government and auctioned off earlier this year. The buyers in question remained nameless at the time of the sale, agreeing to keep the final sale price undisclosed. PleasrDAO was exposed as the mysterious bidder in a piece published today by The New York Times that detailed both the $4 million sale price and the collective’s reasons and ultimate ambitions for the record.
It should come as no surprise that the ultimate goal is to make the album available to fans in some fashion — with RZA’s and producer Cilvaringz’s approval — which, given the group’s self-description, will almost certainly utilize non-fungible token (NFT) blockchain technology. “This record at its inception was a type of protest against rent-seeking middlemen, those who are taking a cut away from the artist,” Jamis Johnson, the group’s “Chief Pleasing Officer,” told Rolling Stone. Crypto has a lot in common with that ethos. The CD is reminiscent of the original NFT.”
PleasrDAO — which stands for “decentralized autonomous organization” — shares collective ownership among its 74 members and have Cilvaringz support to make the album more widely available through listening parties or gallery exhibitions, but for now, it remains bound to the terms of its original sale: It cannot be released to the general public or reproduced until 2103.
