Wu-Tang Clan's Unique Album Draws Massive Crowds in Australian Museum

The Wu-Tang Clan's one-of-a-kind album 'Once Upon A Time in Shaolin' is set to be played at Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art. All free tickets have been claimed, with a waitlist of 5,000 people. The album, a critical pop culture artifact, has had a controversial ownership history.

U.S. hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan's one-of-a-kind album "Once Upon A Time in Shaolin" will be played at a museum in Australia from Saturday and it has already seen overwhelming demand with free tickets exhausted, organisers said on Friday. All the timeslots for the twice-a-day listening sessions have been snapped up and there are still about 5,000 people on the waiting list, said Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art, which will showcase the album from June 15 to 24.

"The Wu Tang album captures people's imaginations, it's a very important piece of pop culture and it's an incredible work of art," Jarrod Rawlins, director of curatorial affairs at MONA, said at a briefing. "The listening events have, all of the free allocated tickets are done, there's 5000 people still on the waiting list," said Rawlins, adding that the museum cannot open up any more slots.

The album, with just one physical copy in the world, was bought by the convicted pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli in 2015 for $2 million. Shkreli gave it up to partially satisfy a $7.4 million forfeiture order after his 2017 conviction for defrauding hedge fund investors and scheming to defraud investors in a drugmaker.

It is now owned by non-fungible token collectors PleasrDAO who purchased the album for $4 million from the U.S. government. PleasrDao is also suing Shkreli for making copies of the album and releasing the music to the public.

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