“I bought the most expensive album in the history of mankind and fucking RZA is talking shit behind my back and online in plain sight. If I hand you $2 million, fucking show me some respect.”
That’s a quote from the incomparable Martin Shkreli who is upset with the Wu-Tang Clan from whom he purchased [3] a one-of-a-kind double disc for $2 million last year.
RZA, the group’s frontman if not its most famous member, found himself in a bit of an awkward scenario when news of the sale hit the wires.
When the deal was done, Shkreli had not yet become a household name. In other words, it wasn’t apparent to RZA that the soon-to-be proud owner of the one and only copy of “Once Upon A Time In Shaolin” would soon become public enemy number one in America on the way to being arrested for fraud.
"I met him, we had a brief lunch, and he did mention his love of hip-hop,” RZA said in the interview with Bloomberg. “I didn’t get a chance to read him."
In the wake of the Daraprim fiasco which saw Shkreli raise the price of a drug he acquired from $13.50 to $750 a pill, Wu-Tang decided to donate "a significant portion" of the proceeds to charity.
Even as RZA isn't particularly enamored with Shkreli's drug pricing practices, the producer says he doesn't regret doing the deal. "He bought it, he can do what he wants," RZA told Bloomberg TV’s John Heilemann."The beautiful thing about art, from my standpoint, is that it has no discrimination. What we’ve done is historical, and you can’t remove that.”
No, you can't, and neither can you "remove" the bad taste Shkreli's Daraprim price hike left in America's mouth which is why when it came time to set bail, no one was in a forgiving mood. The price of (temporary) freedom for America's "most hated man": $5 million.
Unfortunately, the bail bondsman didn't accept Wu-Tang albums as collateral and so, Shkreli put up his E*Trade account instead. The account's value is said to be $45 million.
"Martin Shkreli put up his $45 million E*Trade account to secure $5 million bail after federal authorities arrested him on fraud charges last month," Bloomberg reports [8]. "Shkreli was ordered to disclose how that bond is secured and prosecutors filed papers Thursday stating Shkreli has a brokerage account worth eight figures," NY Daily News [9] adds. "E*Trade has been ordered to notify prosecutors if the balance of the brokerage account dips below $5 million — which would jeopardize the bail bond and Shkreli’s freedom."
We wonder if Martin, like the E*Trade-ing Joe Campbell whose short position in KBIO blew up [10] when Shkreli acquired more than half of the float back in November, will start a GoFundMe page in the event his collapsing holdings leave him a few million short on the bail bond.
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RZA talks Shkreli and Trump with Bloomberg Business
