Wu Tang Clan: What does the world’s rarest album sound like?

Inside a gently hand-carved silver field on show in an Australian museum lies probably the most unique, most precious, and maybe most notorious album on the planet.

And this weekend, I turned one of many fortunate few on the planet to have heard it.

Recorded in secret over six years by trailblazing hip-hop group the Wu-Tang Clan, As soon as Upon a Time in Shaolin was designed to be a bit of effective artwork.

Solely a single CD copy exists – and with it comes a authorized stipulation that the proprietor can’t publicly launch the 31 tracks till 2103.

The document, which options the 9 surviving members of the group, is at the moment on mortgage to Tasmania’s Museum of Previous and New Artwork (Mona) – a gallery so well-known for its headline-catching artwork some dub it Australia’s “Temple of Bizarre”.

First conceived through the pandemic, the museum’s new Namedropping exhibition explores why people chase issues that sign standing and notoriety.

On the prime of lead curator Jarrad Rawlins’ want checklist for the exhibition was this album.

“If I am utterly trustworthy it began as a fantasy… we have been in a gathering and I simply stated, ‘We should always get that Wu-Tang CD’, and everybody went ‘Yeah. Lol’,” he says.

After years of negotiation, followers from everywhere in the globe have now flocked to Mona to listen to a 36-minute pattern of the album, curated particularly by Wu-Tang Clan producer Cilvaringz.

What can the few dozen individuals who scored tickets to the uber-exclusive listening events count on? Mr Rawlins teases a Cher cameo – his favorite bit – however in any other case is tight-lipped.

“The extra we learn about this album, and the extra individuals on the market know, the much less magical it turns into,” he insists.

“I believe the followers are as enthusiastic about not having the ability to hear it… as they’re about having the ability to hear it.”

However considerably paradoxically, the week that Namedropping opens, information breaks that the corporate loaning the album is suing its earlier proprietor – disgraced “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli – for allegedly making digital copies.

He was pressured at hand over the album to US prosecutors in 2018 – three years after buying it – after being convicted of defrauding buyers.

It was purchased by digital artwork collective Pleasr for a rumoured $4m (A$6m; £3.2), worth they’re making an attempt to protect by making Shkreli destroy his bootleg recordsdata.

Since 2015, followers have heard snippets of the mysterious music – from potential patrons handled to a 13-minute section when it was first launched, to the handful of occasions Shkreli streamed scraps on YouTube, and now a five-minute clip which the general public should buy for a single greenback.

However by no means this a lot of it.

As I queue up for my listening session, a contract demanding that I don’t document it’s thrust into my palms.

“Your obligations underneath this settlement begin in your entry to As soon as Upon a Time in Shaolin and proceed for the rest of your life or till 2103, whichever happens first,” it reads.

And after we attain Mona’s Frying Pan Studio itself, I realise the jokes I’ve been listening to about metallic detectors usually are not jokes in any respect.

One after the other, we’re requested to take off our coats, ditch our baggage, and empty our pockets, earlier than we’re diligently scanned.

Strolling into the dimly lit, wood-panelled room the air feels charged – however that may very well be the storm sounds enjoying over the audio system.

“Inexperienced tea on the left,” a workers member tells me.

In the course of the room, underneath a highlight, is a PlayStation One sitting atop a spherical yellow desk.

Weaving between pleather bean baggage – additionally yellow – to plonk himself within the entrance row is a person sporting merch from a Wu-Tang twenty fifth anniversary live performance on the Sydney Opera Home six years in the past. He’s together with his accomplice, who I later catch mid bean-bag-boogie. I make a psychological notice to seek out them later.

As I take my seat in a black wiry chair, I clock a number of safety guards.

A gong rings, after which silence, as a person with gloved palms walks to the entrance of the room. Swinging his arm in an exaggerated arch, he presses a button on the PlayStation, after which slips the CD inside. In equally dramatic measure, he picks up the controller and hits play.

A member of the group – I’ve not studied arduous sufficient to work out which – tells us to “sit again, chill out… and hear”.

“The saga continues,” he says, as they launch into the primary music.

It has oddly soothing choir-like backing vocals, however because the minutes tick by, they provide strategy to considerably much less soothing seagulls and sirens. I hear the staccato of precise gunshots alongside synth piano, strings that will be at dwelling in a dramatic James Bond rating and a riff by some brass instrument which I’ll spend days making an attempt to get out of my head.

Fashioned in Staten Island within the early 90s, Wu-Tang Clan is known for a unique flavour of hip-hop which revolutionised the genre – however they’re additionally identified for his or her violent and sexually specific lyrics.

This document isn’t any totally different.

Contained in the leather-bound lyric ebook that accompanies the bodily album you’d discover loads of references to intercourse and marijuana, and the basic Wu-Tang themes of cash and toil, youth and crime are ever-present.

And on the subject of namedropping, everybody from Tommy Hilfiger and Tina Turner to Rapunzel and Harry Potter will get a shout out.

Behind the glass on the management deck, technicians are mixing the music reside – adjusting the degrees for every music’s attributes. One man appears over their shoulders approvingly, bobbing his head like a rhythmically gifted rooster.

Right here on my aspect of the divide, some individuals reverently sit with their eyes closed whereas others stare on the ceiling. Many faucet fingers on their cups of chilly tea.

All of a sudden, the gloved man is again. He once more walks to the entrance of the room in silence. Eradicating the CD, he slips it right into a nondescript plastic case and walks to a secure, flanked by safety guards.

When the album is safely locked inside, there’s a smattering of applause, and everybody recordsdata out of the room.

Initially, I’m overwhelmed. I don’t suppose I’ve ever heard so many phrases in my life. I really feel like I’ve been assaulted by a dictionary.

I’ve simply as many questions strolling out of the studio as I had stepping into – possibly extra. Was {that a} flute? In a rap music? What precisely was the message of the lyrics? Who was singing what?

And most significantly, the place was the Cher cameo I used to be promised?! Was the curator messing with me?

I ask a few of the journalists I’m with in the event that they heard her. All of us look confused. “Possibly she was on keys?” I say.

I single out Wu Tang Merch man, whose actual identify is Al Maguire. However in the event you suppose he’s buzzing now, it’s best to have seen him within the moments earlier than the “funky tunes” rang out.

“[I felt] like I wanted to pee.

“The primary three minutes I used to be simply making an attempt to not cry.”

He’s already unhappy he received’t hear it once more, he says.

Superfan Jenna Willson is equally emotional after I catch her, decked out actually head to toe in Wu-Tang tributes.

She gallantly takes off her jacket in single digit climate to indicate me a tattoo on the again of her neck, a t-shirt from the Opera Home present that apparently everybody right here however me attended, after which the pièce de resistance – Wu-Tang Clan crocs which she wore to her marriage ceremony.

“I do not understand how everyone was simply sitting down, nodding their heads. I used to be about to lose it. It was so good… Basic Wu-Tang.”

One other man I cease isn’t feeling chatty. He admits to feeling just a little like an imposter – one thing I discover relatable. He says he’s not even actually a Wu-Tang fan.

Lateisha Canning, although, will fortunately admit why she’s right here.

“You can say bragging rights,” the 21-year-old tells me as she strains up along with her accomplice.

“I don’t know something about them.”

By the point I see them on the way in which out, Wu-Tang has two new followers.

But when anybody is certified to supply a assessment, it’s self-described “worldwide heartthrob and agitator” – higher generally known as Australian rap heavyweight, Briggs.

His verdict? “It’s a really cinematic document. The manufacturing was cool. Nice verses.”

He explains Wu-Tang Clan was a giant a part of his childhood and their affect wove its approach into his artistry – he appears like he’s been a part of hip-hop historical past simply by listening.

Requested what he thinks ought to occur to the album now, he laughs. “I don’t care what occurs now, I’ve heard it. You are able to do no matter you need.”