RZA tried to buy back rare Wu-Tang album from Martin Shkreli

But how did Jeff Sessions get his hands on it?

Wu-Tang's RZA says he tried to buy back an ultra rare album after learning that convicted hedge fun manager Martin Shkreli bought it for $2 million.

Melanie Eversley

Apr 3, 2018

Wu-Tang’s RZA says he tried to buy back an ultra rare album after learning that convicted hedge fun manager Martin Shkreli bought it for $2 million.

Shkreli, imprisoned for securities fraud, bought the album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” back in 2015. Somehow the album turned up for sale on eBay and that’s when RZA put his bid in to try and buy it back, according to Complex.com.

“The first thing I did was call my lawyer, and I was like, ‘Yo, let’s go,’ ” explained RZA to Rolling Stone. “And they said, ‘All right, check with your contract.’ And it’s no, you can’t do it.”

A buyer almost succeeded in securing the album for $1,025,100 but the deal fell through.

The government has spoken

This development is the latest in a long and sordid saga involving many players in the music industry and legal world.

A judge ordered Shkreli to give up $7.4 million in assets to the federal government and the government viewed the album as part of those assets.

“It’s kind of crazy,” RZA told Rolling Stone. “The record has become an entity, very different from a lot of albums. … It’s got its own folklore, and that’s what me and (co-producer) Cilvaringz wanted.”

Why is Jeff Sessions involved?

At one point, the album was turned over to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Regarding this, RZA said, “I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s crazy.’ ”

RZA also noted that he did try to get the album into the right hands.

“It was hard for me to sell that album, because I wanted it to be on my living room table,” he told Rolling Stone. “I’ve lost fans, because they think I’ve done something that was out of the nature of what Wu-Tang is,” he said. “I think they’re wrong, but they will have their opinion, right? They felt that we tried to make music become something that only the elite can have, and that’s far from the reality.”