One-Off Wu-Tang Clan Album Sells For Millions
The only copy of Wu-Tang Clan's one-of-a-kind album has reportedly been sold to a secret bidder for a figure in the millions.
In March 2014, the hip hop group's leader Robert 'RZA' Diggs revealed that the 31-track album was sitting in an "engraved silver and nickel box" near the Atlas mountains in Morocco.
Titled Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, the album was sold to an American collector by online auction house Paddle8 in May.
However, it is thought the contracts and legal documents have taken months to finalise.
Speaking last year, RZA said: "We're about to sell an album like nobody else sold it before.
"We're about to put out a piece of art like nobody else has done in the history of [modern] music. We're making a single-sale collector's item. This is like somebody having the sceptre of an Egyptian king."
On the project's website the band revealed that the album, produced by Cilvaringz, features guest appearances from Redman and, bizarrely, FC Barcelona football players.
Although the final sale figure has not been revealed, Shaolin is thought to be the most expensive album ever sold.
"The Wu-Tang Clan have always been driven by innovation, and this marks another moment in musical history," RZA said in a statement to Forbes.
"From the beginning, we hoped that this concept would inspire debate and new ways of seeing creativity. Both of those goals have been achieved, and the ideas continue to evolve."
The band said it would allow the owner to release the album commercially if they chose to but only after 88 years.
Paddle8 co-founder Alexander Gilkes told Forbes: "We pioneered a new type of intellectual property regarding the sale of a work that is simultaneously physical and digital, creating previously unexplored legal protections for a unique work that cannot be reproduced.
"This marks an exciting new model of distribution for the music world and we look forward to playing an ongoing role in this innovative model."
RZA said the group would donate some of the sale proceedings to charity.
