Owner Of Rare Wu-Tang Clan Album Has Been Revealed
The owner of the sole copy of an exclusive Wu-Tang Clan album has been revealed.
According to Rolling Stone, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin has been purchased by PleasrDAO, a group of NFT investors. PleasrDAO is described as a “collective of DeFi leaders, early NFT collectors and digital artists who have built a formidable yet benevolent reputation for acquiring culturally significant pieces with a charitable twist.”
Jamis Johnson, PleasrDAO’s 34-year-old Chief Pleasing Officer, told the outlet, “This beautiful piece of art, this ultimate protest against middlemen and rent seekers of musicians and artists, went south by going into the hands of Martin Shkreli, the ultimate internet villain. We want this to be us bringing this back to the people. We want fans to participate in this album at some level.”
PleasrDAO paid $4 million for the album, Rolling Stone reports.
Previously, the album was owned by CEO Martin Shkreli. The former hedge fund manager and pharmaceutical business investor originally made headlines for raising the price of the HIV/AIDS drug Daraprim from $13.50 a pill to $750. It later led him into legal troubles, embroiling him in shady and fraudulent business dealings.
In 2018, a judge sentenced him to seven years in prison for defrauding investors in two failed hedge funds. Formally, he was charged and convicted with securities fraud and his sentence.
Martin Shkreli’s sentencing came days after he was ordered to relinquish both the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin as well as Lil Wayne’s unreleased project, Tha Carter V.
Judge Matsumoto ruled on March 5 that in order to help pay off a $7.36 million forfeiture for securities fraud, Shkreli will have to give up several assets. Aside from the Wu and Wayne LPs, Shkreli also had to cash in his E-Trade brokerage account, his stake in the drug company Vyera Pharmaceuticals, and a painting by Pablo Picasso.
