The crazy story of the world’s rarest album

Throughout history, countless artists—from Björk to Taylor Swift, James Blake to Neil Young, and many others—have rebelled against the overwhelming dominance of streaming. But one legendary group went further than all of them. And took a more radical approach. Here’s the crazy story of the world’s rarest album.

We’re telling you the whole story!

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

The crazy story of the world’s rarest album – A bit of background

It was the late 2000s. And one of the most important groups in the history of hip-hop culture—and music in general—was working on a new album. Years after the record that introduced them to the mainstream, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993), the Wu-Tang Clan had nothing left to prove.
Their music, built on obscure samples and kung-fu tributes; their rhymes, at once technical and brutal; and their innovative production—which introduced a fresh musical aesthetic—had propelled them into the ranks of legendary artists. The kind of artists whose legacy never fades, and who inspire countless books, documentaries, series, and films.

All of this would indeed happen for the Wu-Tang Clan and its many members—most of whom boasted successful solo careers with classic albums of their own.

Their portrayal of a daily life defined by violence, racism, and exclusion transported a generation to the gritty streets of New York’s boroughs, while their razor-sharp voices—sometimes tinged with madness—captivated millions. But for the moment, it was time to get back to work. And to cement their legend.

Controversies

It took nearly six years to complete what would become Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The album’s creation was unusual. The rappers recorded songs without realizing they would eventually form a new album. Or that this album would become a new milestone in the Wu-Tang discography.
The group’s sonic architect, RZA, steered the sessions, yet the process remained mysterious and opaque.

In a 2024 interview with Vanity Fair, Method Man—one of the group’s leaders—spoke about the circumstances of its creation:

“I thought it was some circus spectacle. I never really spoke to RZA about it; it’s an uncomfortable subject to most of the guys, so we don’t really discuss it too much […] It was never supposed to be a Wu-Tang album. We were recording and being paid to do a certain number of records by a guy whose name I don’t want to mention […] He took all these verses — some of them were old verses — and put them altogether into a compilation of Wu-Tang songs and marketed it as a Wu-Tang album, and a single copy of a Wu-Tang album.”

Thirty-one songs were recorded, mixed, and assembled. One man played a particularly active role in the process: Cilvaringz, an RZA protégé. He was not an original member of the group. And both fellow members of the collective and fans viewed him with suspicion.

With good reason. Some members of Wu-Tang clashed with him after the album’s release, and he became the source of numerous internal conflicts that nearly brought the group to its demise. Matters reached a point where Method Man refuses to even utter his name in public today. Cilvaringz, a native of the Netherlands, had dreamed of joining Wu-Tang since childhood.

Through sheer perseverance, he became the collective’s first international signing. He even managed RZA’s first international tour and opened for various Wu members. He also planted ideas in his mentor’s mind. Such as producing an album that could be sold to a single buyer for millions of dollars.

Revolution

The production was largely the work of Cilvaringz, who composed everything from Marrakech in direct collaboration with RZA. The goal was to replicate the group’s raw, unpolished sound from the early 90s as a tribute to that golden era.

By 2015, with streaming taking the industry by storm and upending the power dynamics between artists and platforms, RZA, Raekwon, and the others had no intention of making the album available via streaming services. They refused to play by these new rules.

Instead, RZA and Cilvaringz decided to release only one single copy of the album—in physical format. It would be the only copy in existence, available nowhere else. Just one copy for the entire world. You don’t need to be a math genius to realize that this makes it the rarest album on the planet.

In a statement, RZA added:

“Mass replication has fundamentally changed the way we view a piece of recorded music, while digital universality and vanishing physicality have broken our emotional bond with a piece of music as an artwork and a deeply personal treasure.”

Producer RZA even compared it to a Picasso painting or an artifact from Egyptian civilization. While clearly an exaggeration, this illustrates the thinking behind the album and shows just how determined the Wu’s architect was to create a unique object able to stand the test of time.

A real piece of art

In addition to the album itself, the package includes a 174-page booklet featuring lyrics and an anecdote about each song. As a bonus, a pair of speakers is included in the box set. The box containing these items is made of silver and set with what appear to be precious stones. It resembles an ancient treasure—a relic passed down through generations that no one dares to open.

Shortly before the album went up for auction, 150 people were allowed to listen to a thirteen-minute excerpt during a session in Queens, New York. This stoked excitement as rumors began to swirl.

Some claimed that Once Upon a Time in Shaolin could not be heard by the general public until 2103, and that the winning bidder would be contractually bound to this restriction. It was true. And an unprecedented move in music history, only heightening the album’s mystique.

The crazy story of the world’s rarest album – A “pharma bro” enters the scene”

In 2015, Martin Shkreli, a controversial pharmaceutical businessman, bought the album for $2 million. Two. Million. Dollars. For a music album. It was a staggering sum that generated negative publicity for the group, as Shkreli was far from universally admired.

In fact, the opposite was true. Various scandals dogged him and even ostracized him from certain circles. Worse still, he earned the title of “the most hated man in America” ​​after being accused of hiking the price of an HIV medication by 5,500 percent.

Yet, when RZA first met him, he seemed sincere, honest, and upright—and genuinely interested in Wu-Tang’s music. The deal was struck quickly, but things soon turned sour. Shkreli revealed his true colors: those of a dishonest, volatile, hot-tempered, and manipulative man.

To make matters worse, after purchasing it, he threatened to remove all contributions by one of the rappers, Ghostface Killah, from the album—or to destroy it outright.

Following Donald Trump’s 2016 election, Martin played excerpts from the album to celebrate the new U.S. President, before promising to host a listening event and then backtracking on that decision.

Less than two years after buying it in 2017, he decided to sell the album, simply writing on his Facebook account: “I am selling the Wu-Tang Clan album. Fuck Wu-Tang.” It was an explicit statement that led to real-world consequences, as the album did indeed end up on eBay, attracting hundreds of bidders. Nobody was able to buy it, but still, the news spread everywhere.

He defended his actions by claiming he had bought the record to support the Wu-Tang Clan and celebrate their musical legacy, but that he regretted the decision following heated exchanges with one of the collective’s members. A whim? Undoubtedly. And yet another chapter in an increasingly bizarre saga.

The crazy story of the world’s rarest album – Everything falls apart

In July 2021, there was a dramatic turn of events: Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was seized by the U.S. Department of Justice. The record was among the assets involved in a $7.3 million fraud case against Martin Shkreli, its owner at the time. The album had remained in the hands of a single man for six years.

During that time, there were no leaks—nothing. Not a single track surfaced, save for a few snippets shared online that no one could verify as actually belonging to the album. The mystery remained intact. RZA and Cilvaringz feared the album might be auctioned off without regard for the conditions of its creation or the legal constraints they had imposed. Would government ownership strip them of the rights to something they had spent so long building?

Shortly thereafter, another twist occurred. Jason Leopold, a journalist at Bloomberg, spent months investigating this larger-than-life story. He revealed that PleasrDAO—a firm specializing in digital art and cryptocurrency—had purchased Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for $4 million in cryptocurrency.

The deal was cryptic and involved several entities, including one that wishes to remain anonymous. It only adds to the mystery surrounding the world’s most mysterious album.

Explaining its purchase, PleasrDAO states:

“Ten years ago, the Wu-Tang Clan had a bold vision to make a single copy album as a work of fine art. To ‘put it in an art gallery … make music become a living piece like a Mona Lisa or a scepter from Egypt […] With this single work of art, the Wu-Tang Clan intended to redefine the meaning of music ownership and value in a world of digital streaming and commodification of music.”

In an interview with The New Yorker, Jamis Johnson, one of the company’s leaders, adds:

“This album, at its inception, was a kind of protest against rent-seeking middlemen, people who are taking a cut away from the artist […] very much shares that same ethos.”

The company’s goal is to transform the physical object into a digital product. This is arguably a way to reverse the narrative—or at least extend it—serving as a metaphor for the evolution of our societies and of music itself, moving from the physical to the digital. But does this respect RZA’s vision?

The crazy story of the world’s rarest album – Closer and closer

To offer fans shares in the form of NFTs, PleasrDAO invited them to listen to a five-minute excerpt from the album for one dollar in cryptocurrency. It was a way to gradually bring the album to the fans and extend the Once Upon a Time in Shaolin experience.

But beyond that—nothing else. There were no major leaks, nor was the album made available in its entirety. The collective maintains that the album remains locked in a vault somewhere in New York.

Then, in June 2024, another twist. It was announced that excerpts from the album would be played at an Australian art museum for about ten days, alongside a display of the album’s only copy.

The director of Mona—the museum in question—explained the exhibition this way:

“Every once in a while, an object on this planet possesses mystical properties that transcend its material circumstances […] Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is more than just an album, so when I was thinking about status, and what a transcendent namedrop could be, I knew I had to get it into this exhibition.”

Following these listening sessions, many fans and journalists shared their impressions. While it is impossible to judge an album based on just a few minutes, the reactions were mixed. Some hailed it as a work of genius, others were understandably frustrated, and some felt disappointed—likely stemming from a desire to hear more.

Experiencing the world’s rarest album

A Guardian journalist described the experience as almost mystical, with listeners sitting with their eyes closed, focused intently on the sound coming from the speakers. After this brief musical interlude, museum security whisked the album away and returned it to a secure vault. It was a highly staged affair, in line with RZA’s original vision when he first conceived the project.

Yet, no one has heard the album in full—and no one will for a long time to come. Meanwhile, Martin Shkreli is fighting back. In February 2026, he sued RZA for breach of contract, demanding royalty payments. It is a complex legal battle stemming from the terms of the contract Martin signed in 2015 when he purchased the album.

Shortly before that, PleasrDAO had also taken Martin to court, accusing him of illegally playing excerpts from the album. A legal nightmare that could well drag on for years.

Despite these disputes, there is still no hope of the album ever being released to the general public. A contract stipulates that it cannot enter the public domain until… 2103—that is, 77 years from now.

We won’t be around to hear it, then—but perhaps our grandchildren will! And when that happens, the album will undoubtedly take on a new life, adding to its legend.

In 2015, the Guinness Book of World Records certified Once Upon a Time in Shaolin as the most valuable album in the world. Eleven years later, that status remains unchanged, even though the album now feels closer to us. So close, yet still so far away!