Remember when the Wu-Tang double CD (
Wu-Tang Forever) came out in '97 and in 'Bells of War' RZA told me I didn't even need to go to summer school, that the Wu-Tang double CD would be all the education I needed that year? Well he was SPOT ON. And now the group has announced they're only releasing a single copy of an upcoming album,
Wu-Tang: Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. It will come in this engraved silver and nickel box and likely fetch multiple millions of dollars. WE HAVE TO BUY IT. Everybody -- start robbing banks. No casualties though, we're not killers, we just f***ing love the Wu.
Wu-Tang's aim is to use the album as a springboard for the reconsideration of music as art, hoping the approach will help restore it to a place alongside great visual works-and create a shift in the music business, not to mention earn some cash, in the process. The one-of-a-kind launch will be a separate endeavor from the group's 20th anniversary album, A Better Tomorrow, which is set for a standard commercial release this summer. According to RZA and the album's main producer Tarik "Cilvaringz" Azzougarh, a Morocco-based part of Wu-Tang's extended family, the plan is to first take Once Upon A Time In Shaolin on a "tour" through museums, galleries, festivals and the like. Just like a high-profile exhibit at a major institution, there will be a cost to attend, likely in the $30-$50 range. Visitors will go through heavy security to ensure that recording devices aren't smuggled in; as an extra precaution, they'll likely have to listen to the 128-minute album's 31 songs on headphones provided by the venue. As Cilvaringz puts it: "One leak of this thing nullifies the entire concept."
Apparently the eventual buyer of the album will be able to do whatever they want to with it, and there's speculation a record company will purchase it and release it traditionally themselves. Or that some filthy rich person will do it for free as an act of providing art to the people. But if Justin Bieber buys it we are going to kick his bitch ass and take it. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO THE WU, JUSTIN. I heard one time he tried shadowboxing himself and lost. Thanks to rob, Allyson, MARZ, Chris C and Terrance, who are all smart enough to protect their necks.
