Shkreli makes good on election promise, releases songs from $2M Wu-Tang LP
As promised, controversialex-pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has leaked Wu-Tang Clan’s one-of-a-kind album, following Donald Trump’s US presidential election win yesterday.
Shkreli purchased the only copy of the album,Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,for a reported US$2 million last December, and promised to release it if Trump won.
If Trump wins, my entire unreleased music collection, including unheard Nirvana, Beatles, and of course, Wu-Tang, comes out, for free.
— Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) October 27, 2016
Now he’s made good on that promise having live-streamed songs from the album via video app Hitbox and Periscope.
According to Shkreli‘s aforementioned tweet from last month, he also has unheard Nirvana and Beatles music in his collection and plans to release it. But apparently we won’t get the rest of the Wu-Tang album, nor the unheard Beatles and Nirvana cuts until he has access to dating site OkCupid, game-streaming service Twitch and Google’s video streaming giant YouTube, the latter of which banned him from streaming for 90 days last week.
More music comes out when OkCupid, Twitch and Youtube unban me. Trump won, sorry, don’t take it out on me. @okcupid @Twitch @YouTube
— Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) November 9, 2016
In September 2015, Shkreli’s former company Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to cheap anti-parasitic drug Daraprim and infamously increased the price more than 5000%. He wasarrested in December on allegations of securities fraud.
When the Wu-Tang’s producer/leader Robert Diggs, aka RZA, learnedBloombergwas to report on Shkreli’s purchase of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, he stated some of the profits would go to charity.
“The sale ofOnce Upon a Time in Shaolinwas agreed upon in May, well before Martin Skhreli’s [sic] business practices came to light,” read the statement to Bloomberg. “We decided to give a significant portion of the proceeds to charity.”
According to a statement made by RZA last November, that “significant portion” of the US$2 million profit was shared among “a variety of charities”, includingThe Truth About Cancer and Children Literacy Society.