Music: Identity of Wu-Tang Clan album buyer revealed

 

The identity of the man who bought the only copy of Wu-Tang Clan's album Once Upon A Time in Shaolin has been revealed.

Martin Shkreli, 32, paid "millions of dollars" at an auction in November.

The chief executive of a pharmaceutical company in America admits he hasn't even listened to it yet.

"I could be convinced to listen to it if Taylor Swift wants to hear it," he said.

"But for now, I think I'm going to kind of save it for a rainy day."

The record had been stored in a vault at a hotel in Marrakech, Morocco, since it was finished in 2013.

In March 2015, the hip-hop group said the future owner of the double album wouldn't be allowed to release the 31 tracks for 88 years.

It includes contributions by each member of Wu-Tang Clan and comes in a hand-carved nickel-silver case with a pair of customised speakers worth £36,000 thrown in.

There's also a 174-page booklet containing lyrics, credits and stories about the recording of each song.

 

A 13-minute medley of the album was played to a select group of media, fans and potential buyers earlier this year.

Rolling Stone, which was one of the only media allowed in to listen, wrote: "Simply put, if the full, 128-minute Once Upon A Time In Shaolin... is as solid as the 13 minutes heard on Monday night, it could be the group's most popular album since 1997."

Shkreli told Bloomberg he got in to rap music after reading Shakespeare at school.

"You would get these rhyming couplets and soliloquies and stuff like that but the couplets would really kind of jar with you," he said.

"They would be these really big, soul-crushing moments that Shakespeare intended to stir your spirit. And in many ways, music does that."

It's never been revealed how much he actually paid for the record but it's thought to be around £1.3 million.

He now wants other bands to write tracks exclusively for him.

"It's almost like the instructions to the band are: 'Do your best work, however much time it takes and never compromise anything for me,' " he said.  





"I just want to hear what you've got."

But this isn't the first time Shkreli has been in the headlines in recent months.

Back in September he was labelled a "morally bankrupt sociopath" and a "scumbag".

The reason? He'd acquired the rights to a drug used by Aids patients and said he was going to increase the price by hundreds of pounds.

After a backlash, he agreed to lower it to an "affordable level".

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