Method Man Explains His Hate For Mysterious Wu-Tang Album Sold At Auction
Method Man has further detailed the reasoning behind his disdain for the mysterious Wu-Tang album once auctioned off for $2 million.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, the rap star spoke on his thoughts on the album, titled The Wu – Once Upon A Time In Shaolin and first announced a decade ago in 2014. “I thought it was some circus spectacle,” he said of the unreleased project. “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.”
Method Man attends a screening of the Paramount+ Original Docuseries, How Music Got Free, at The Paramount Screening Room on June 11, 2024 in New York City.
Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for Paramount+
Method Man also reiterated that the album was created under false pretenses, as he and his fellow groupmates were under the impression that the song recreated was for individual recordings, not a full-length long player. “The process of the thing being made was never told to us,” he said. “We were never told what it was. We were recording and being paid to do a certain amount of records.”
Furthermore, the Staten Island rep likened The Wu – Once Upon A Time In Shaolin to a project loosely cobbled together and billed under the guise of an official Wu-Tang release. “[Cilvaringz] put them altogether into a compilation of Wu-Tang songs and marketed it as a Wu-Tang album,” he stated. “A single copy of a Wu-Tang album. We all had a problem with it because that’s not how it was described to us.”
(Back row L-R) Masta Killa, Ghostface Killah, RZA, Method Man, GZA, (front L-R) Raekwon and Cappadonna of Wu-Tang Clan attend the Mtn Dew ICE launch event on January 18, 2018 in Brooklyn, New York.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Mountain Dew
Created, with RZA’s blessing, by producer and Wu-Tang affiliate Cilvaringz, The Wu – Once Upon A Time In Shaolin project has seen a winding road of twists and turns over the years, resulting in it being one of the more coveted, yet controversial records in recent memory.
The album was first purchased by Martin Shkreli in 2015, but was later resold in 2021 by the U.S. government following Shkreli’s arrest on federal charges to PleasrDAO group for a reported $4 million. The RZA has since reiterated his intent for The Wu – Once Upon A Time In Shaolin being vaulted until Oct. 8, 2103, as stipulated by the original contract inked by Shkreli. In May 2024, it was announced that the album will be housed in an Australian museum until further notice.