RZA Relives Panic Over Wu-Tang’s Martin Shkreli Deal
RZA accepted Martin Shkreli's place in Wu-Tang history as a new film traced the rare album's troubled path from art to asset.
Black News 
RZA recalled trying to escape the Martin Shkreli album deal after the buyer’s drug-price scandal, but said a signed contract blocked that exit.
He recounted the panic in a new interview with PEOPLE. Years after the 2015 sale, he accepted Shkreli’s place in Wu-Tang’s story.
“Yes, to be honest. Yes. You got to accept that,” RZA said.
His comments came as “The Disciple: A Wu-Tang Fable” reached streaming. The film follows Cilvaringz, born Tarik Azzougarh, a Dutch-Moroccan rapper who pursued a place within Wu-Tang. His bond with RZA led to the rare album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
The 31-track project challenged the idea that recorded music should be cheap and easy to copy. Its creators offered one physical album in a silver box. Shkreli bought it for a reported $2 million in 2015.
RZA, an executive producer and subject of the film, also addressed the work’s future in Netflix’s updated profile. He said he no longer needed to control where it went.
“This has become an entity of its own, and we should allow it to live,” he said.
The album’s path later ran through a federal fraud case. A Brooklyn jury convicted Shkreli in August 2017 of two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. He cheated investors and rigged a drug company’s stock. A judge sentenced him to seven years in prison.
Shkreli had to give up the record to help pay a roughly $7.4 million judgment. Prosecutors announced its sale on July 27, 2021, saying the money cleared that debt. The case concerned fraud, separate from the drug-pricing scandal RZA recalled.
The concept also caused friction within Wu-Tang. As AllHipHop previously reported, Method Man said in 2024 that members recorded verses without knowing how Cilvaringz would package them. He described the album as a difficult subject within the group.
RZA also said the project had brought him enemies, praise and questions. A small audience could still carry its ideas forward, in his view.
Director Joanna Natasegara said the album challenged how the music business valued art, especially work by artists of color. Her film follows Cilvaringz’s drive to join the group and turn that idea into one rare record. It began streaming October 16.
