Today’s A Nice Pair features the Wu-Tang Clan. We recommend pairing the book Once Upon a Time in Shaolin: The Untold Story of Wu-Tang Clan’s Million-Dollar Secret Album, the Devaluation of Music, and America’s New Public Enemy No.1 by Cyrus Bozorgmehr with the album Enter the Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers), both released within a year of each other.
The book title may almost rival the book length itself but it encapsulates the many controversies surrounding the group’s ultimately multi-million-dollar album. They released a single copy of a physical album with no duplicates, encased in silver and sold via an auction house for millions as a work of contemporary art. The debate began: was this protest piece again the digitization of music truly a work of art or a mockery? To further deepen the layers of controversy, it was disgraced pharma bro Martin Shkreli who ultimately purchased the album.
Enter the Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers) is a remarkably more affordable alternative that you can enjoy alongside the book. We just received our restock of it this week.