Unboxing Wu-Tang's Secret "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" Album for Method Man — and You

The most expensive album in music history is a controversial, 1-of-1 work of art, owned by "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, then the feds... and now a mysterious digital art collective named pleasrDAO. But, in no small part because the album's NFT-style circus began to fracture their team, Wu-Tang Clan's most famous member had never actually heard "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin." Until now. • Learn more about pleasrDAO and the album https://www.ouatis.art/ PREVIOUSLY ON PTFO: • Share & Wu & Tell with Method Man and Dan Le Batard https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/NjkzYTM0M2JhOWQwMDM4ODljMjI5MzU0 • We Found the Knicks' Top-Secret Tapes for Kawhi, Kyrie and KD (feat. Wu-Tang) https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/Njk0NDg0N2RmZmEyODhiZGJiYmZkODA0 • Plus: Is Wu-Tang Really That Good at Chess? https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/OTUzMzAyODYtODRkZC0xMWYwLWFjNDUtZmZhYTA3NzA4MGM4 MORE PABLO: • Send us your confidential tips https://www.pablo.show/p/tips • Subscribe to PTFO on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@PabloTorreFindsOut (Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by Apple Card.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out, brought to you by Apple Card. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  I believe now that Shkreli's out of the picture, this album is in great hands. Absolutely.

• 0:17Pablo Torre?

  Right after this.

• 0:21Speaker 02

  With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 0:44Speaker 03

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:17Pablo Torre?

  Ready to upgrade your PC? The Dell Top Tech Event is here, and you can skip the research because independent tech experts already did it. Dell has laptops, desktops, and monitors that have been tested, reviewed, and named a winner by the publishers you trust. So instead of spending hours researching, you get a short list that's already proven. Take the Dell XPS 13 Laptop, built for those who want better. Whether you're studying, working, or just getting things done, its thin and light design makes it easy to take anywhere. It has a touchscreen you'll love using, a battery built to last through your busiest days, and impressive performance powered by Intel Core processors. That's the thing about the Dell Top Tech Event. The experts already found the winners. All that's left is finding yours. While shopping, you'll also find great perks

• 2:02Pablo Torre?

  like Dell Rewards, fast free shipping, premium support, and financing with flexible payment options. Shop the winners now at dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.

• 2:24Pablo Torre?

  If you're listening to this, it means that this became a podcast, which is a strange thing because in real life, I need to paint the picture of Method Man being to my right. Could you please welcome Method Man to the stage?

• 2:45Pablo Torre?

  The last time that me and Dan Lebatard, who was to Method Man's right...

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Y'all can do better than that.

• 2:54Pablo Torre?

  That was a...

• 2:58Speaker 04

  Pity applause. Thank you. Pity applause, brought to you by a man more popular than me. Thank you.

• 3:05Pablo Torre?

  The last time that Dan Meth and I podcasted was, I'm checking this, December of 2025?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:12Pablo Torre?

  And I vowed to attempt something that has been, until now, impossible. Dan, can you explain the visuals here? What are we seeing for people who are not here?

• 3:20Speaker 04

  It is a trendy Brooklyn place, about 50 people who are feeling super exclusive because they're the hippie elite.

• 3:29Speaker 04

  And they get to hear a secret told by Pablo that they will tell their friends about because those are the kinds of secrets that Pablo tells.

• 3:37Pablo Torre?

  The thing we're here to listen to, Method, how do you explain it to people who don't know anything about what this is?

• 3:48Speaker 01

  It was an album born from an idea of a guy named Silver Rings. He was RZA's protege. And he had this idea where I'm going to try to do a compilation album, Wu-Tang songs with Wu-Tang on it. On March 26, 2014, we made an announcement that had resonated throughout the world, where we said that there'll be a new Wu-Tang Clan album entitled "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin", but only one copy would ever exist. And during this announcement, we reclaimed the idea that recorded music should be regarded as a work of art.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  We sent out different records. We laid down verses separately, so I don't know what anybody else's verse sounds like. And then the circus started.

• 4:42Speaker 05

  In 2015, something unusual happened in the music world. An album sold for $2 million, but it wasn't released to the public. It never showed up on Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere fans could actually hear it. Just one copy exists, locked away, hidden from the world. The group responsible for this innovative release was Wu-Tang Clan, the Staten Island legends who changed hip-hop forever back in the 90s. Their project, "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin", would become the most controversial and expensive album in history. Over the years, this one-of-a-kind album has been surrounded by mystery.

• 5:16Pablo Torre?

  Did you enjoy the circus?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  At first, yeah. Because it was more or less like, oh, okay, this could be interesting. An art piece, 88 years? That was a bit far-fetched. I thought that was weird.

• 5:28Pablo Torre?

  The idea that this album cannot be commercially sold until the year 2103?

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Oh, my grandbaby B.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  No matter. Then Martin Shkreli stepped in.

• 5:39Speaker 06

  The purchase of a, is it Wu-Tang Clan? Is that the name of the album? Name of the group?

• 5:47Speaker 06

  On the advice of counsel, I invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and respectfully decline to answer your question.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  You guys familiar with Martin Shkreli, right? And for some... Well, I mean, honestly, from RZA's assessment, he was a very nice guy when they met him. And then he just turned into this supervillain. It felt WWE-ish.

• 6:12Pablo Torre?

  But as much as Martin Shkreli, who secretly purchased "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" at auction in 2015, may be synonymous with the saga of the most expensive album ever created, he is not the only reason that Method Man has felt so deeply estranged from this album and from his fellow members of the Wu-Tang Clan. Because even before Shkreli ever got involved, Meth had felt like he'd been left in the dark by both his old friend RZA, Wu-Tang's de facto leader and the all-time production genius whose voice you heard before, and RZA's protege, a producer and Wu-Tang affiliate based in Morocco named Tarek, aka Silver Rings, who was standing right behind RZA

• 6:57Pablo Torre?

  at that big announcement event.

• 7:00Speaker 06

  Welcome, everyone. My name is Silver Rings and want to thank everybody for coming today. I met RZA in 1997. Since then, I've had the privilege of traveling the world with him and not only studied the way he produced music, but to learn about the character that drove the music.

• 7:19Pablo Torre?

  Silver Rings and RZA were in charge of this secret, increasingly infamous art project. Method Man was not. He'd only ever heard his own contributions to the album, as he said before. And so as questions swirled all around the world about that 88-year commercial moratorium and this weird auction, the circus began to fracture the group, as Meth told HuffPost Live back in 2015.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  F that album. F it. If that's what they're doing, F it. I'm tired of the gimmicks. And when somebody... It's never us coming with the gimmicks. It's always somebody on the outside, a B, a B Wu guy or somebody like that coming with some crap that's just so gimmicky. It's like, it makes you scratch your head and say, why Wu-Tang? When it's not Wu-Tang. It's just one individual thinking he knows what's best and just doing weird stuff, man. I just think it's just crazy weird. And yes, I'm discrediting Silver Rings, but I'm not discrediting the product. I'm just discrediting him and the way he made his move, you know? I dug it at first, but when they start doing the whole 88-year thing and not explaining it to people because there are a lot more dumb people than smart people, to a lot of people it sounded like, 88 years, we ain't gonna be able to hear this album.

• 8:33Pablo Torre?

  How many hip-hop magazines do you think are gonna quote you discrediting Silver Rings right now? And put that up?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  They probably will because that's the only way they're gonna get a quote from me in the future now, anyway.

• 8:42Pablo Torre?

  You're done?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm done. They can... I'm hanging it up. Hip-hop, I'm not gonna name my name, but they know who they are. They know who they are. And don't come ask me for nothing.

• 8:52Pablo Torre?

  All of which brings us to this very special evening, more than a decade after that interview you just heard, at a bar named Eavesdrop, where everyone's phones will be taken from us. No tweeting, no streaming, no Instagram, no nothing. Because Method Man, who walked in dressed in a New York Jets jersey and a matching Jets cap, has accepted the most surreal invitation I think I've ever sent a person. And he even agreed to answer questions. And so now, we're gonna find out what Method Man really thinks about this insane, frustrating album that he is also on, but somehow, like the rest of us, has never heard,

• 9:38Pablo Torre?

  until tonight.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Long story short, I just thought that this could have been done in a way where it didn't feel like it would compromise the Wu-Tang's integrity or what we built over the years. So I'm going to listen to this joint with no bias whatsoever and give you guys a honest review.

• 10:07Pablo Torre?

  So for those not following what Method Man is saying, the album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin", which is not available for public consumption anywhere, and it'll only be played in places like Taiwan, and London, and Tanzania, and now here at this very exclusive establishment, Eavesdrop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  It's nice in here.

• 10:32Pablo Torre?

  Method Man has never heard it before.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  I heard my [BLEEP] go spa.

• 10:42Pablo Torre?

  And so what we're gonna do is find out with Method Man what it's like when the art and the artist get reunited in a way that is...

• 10:52Speaker 01

  I like how you put that. She'll live surprise with me, y'all.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  It's fair to say, though, that they're about to hear one of the great mysteries in music.

• 11:08Pablo Torre?

  A mystery that takes us not only from the supervillain Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli, but to the federal government and to securities law and an art group that we have somehow partnered with. Thanks to Emily. Where is Emily?

• 11:28Pablo Torre?

  A bunch of characters that we will explain in the rest of this podcast if we get there. But I guess we should, uh, how should we officially inaugurate this? What should we say at the very end of this?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Uh, Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to [bleep] with.

• 11:47Pablo Torre?

  So I suppose we should press play.

• 12:06Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 13:45Pablo Torre?

  So we are talking all the time in sports and on this show about scarcity and how to decide what a true one of one is worth. Whether it's the $8 million Cooper Flag Rookie Card, or a $15,000 Bird Automaton, or the most expensive team in American sports history, the $12.5 billion Los Angeles Lakers. And so, before we return you to eavesdrop, this bar in Brooklyn, where Method Man is about to hear the most expensive album ever sold, an album that the public, to this day, is not allowed to hear, I want to explain how in the [bleep] all of this happened and how I wound up bringing an apparently cursed piece of artwork

• 14:28Pablo Torre?

  and its estranged artist together,

• 14:33Pablo Torre?

  which requires you to meet a very different artist by the name of Emily Yang. People who are listening to this, they just heard Method Man, and I shouted you out, I shouted out Emily, and I just think that you're the only person who can explain how this all came to be. So thank you for doing this.

• 14:55Speaker 05

  No, thanks for having me. I love how serendipitously this all came together.

• 15:02Pablo Torre?

  It's ridiculous and an indictment of me as a journalist, frankly, that it came together in the way that we're gonna try and outline here.

• 15:11Pablo Torre?

  Because it starts in December 2025, with the podcast that I did with Dan Lebatard, my friend slash boss at Metal Arc Media, and his good friend, Method Man, now age 55, an enormous, genuine sports fan, as evidenced by his whole New York Jets uniform. Because Meth did not know the answer to a very basic question about "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin", even though he happens to be the most mainstream famous member of Wu-Tang by far in the first place. And that question is who actually owns this secret album now?

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Right now, I don't know who owns it. I think a few, maybe you can find that out. I know the feds had it for a minute and somebody else came and purchased it. And I don't think we're entitled to any of that money as well.

• 16:01Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna ask, have you seen any residual checks from any of this?

• 16:04Speaker 01

  And if I have, they, you know, my bank account pretty tight. So, you know what I'm saying? I don't be noticing sometimes [bleep]. I'm just saying, I'm just keeping it a buck.

• 16:15Pablo Torre?

  Well, the answer, it turns out, is not one person, like a Martin Shkreli, for instance, the album's first owner. The current owner is a mysterious digital art collective. And this collective's name is Pleaser Dao.

• 16:36Pablo Torre?

  And so your reaction, Emily, when you were hearing the conversation that I was having with Meth on that episode, was what?

• 16:44Speaker 05

  I was like, hey, I know a thing or two about this Dao. It was just funny because this was during a time where I was not really using social media. And so I was just randomly like clicking on people's stories. And then I clicked on yours. And it's like, you know, just randomly one day after like days of not using it. And then you guys just happened to be talking about this. So I was just like, hey, I know a thing or two about that. And then so I replied to your story, just like, oh, I know what you guys are talking about.

• 17:14Pablo Torre?

  I consider myself a decent investigative reporter. I want to acknowledge that. So the fact that I had met you entirely separately from anything related to Pleaser Dao, or Wu-Tang Clan, or anything, we had met, I didn't even know how to explain how we met. I will call it, for the sake of this conversation, like, an Asian-American sort of media retreat event sort of thing, which was great. We became friends, I would say, but I just had it, I had it pieced together. The fact that this Emmy-winning artist, which you are, making innovative digital artwork, under, under what name, for the record here?

• 17:56Speaker 05

  People Pleaser.

• 17:57Pablo Torre?

  Was connected it all to Pleaser Dao, despite the fact that it is spelled the same way.

• 18:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, because we spelled Pleaser like a very weird, or I spelt it that way. And then so then the Dao spelt it also that way. But it's spelled like P P L P L E A S R. I'm People Pleaser, a digital creator and NFT artist. Life's too short to restrict myself to one specific style. And so I just like to experiment all over the place. And maybe what makes it scream "People Pleaser" is more of the idea and concept behind it as opposed to the visual style. Honestly, I don't blame you at all. Like, I think it would take like a really, really, really paranoid investigator to have put the two together.

• 18:45Speaker 05

  But if you were in like crypto or any of like the adjacent like scene, then I think you, you would have like, you know, been more familiar with the backstory and stuff.

• 18:55Pablo Torre?

  I thought I was a pretty paranoid investigator. It turns out I should be more paranoid that I'm surrounded by people that I'm actually trying to get in contact with that I already know. That's what, the bummer, as I was reading these Instagram messages from you, I mean, I'll quote, I'll quote the message that made me like almost throw my phone against the wall. And I'm just like pulling it up here. And your handle on Instagram is P V L P L E A S R, People Pleaser. And you can see your artwork on that account. Okay, here it is. In response to this clip, you go, OMG, wait, the crypto group named after me bought slash owns this album. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  I knew it was gonna be embarrassing.

• 19:40Pablo Torre?

  It's a tough sentence to understand. Can you explain, I mean, I guess what a Dao is in the context of this story, I guess?

• 19:49Speaker 05

  Sure, um, like, you know, super quick crash course is just a Dao. D A O stands for. Decentralized autonomous organization. And it's kind of like a technology adjacent thing that happened, emerged as a part of cryptocurrency or blockchain technology. Because when a group of people have a collective goal, or within crypto, you're doing things on chain. And what that means is through cryptography. By the way, if some actual technologist is listening to this and they're like, you're wrong. That's my disclaimer, but.

• 20:27Pablo Torre?

  No, I want it explained to me like I'm five, so this is really helpful.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, so basically, a group of people have the same goal. And there's this technology that was created so that you can all sort of own something together or make decisions together. And then you can sign things together, like a board or like a collective, if you will. So that's what it means, the term itself. And so anybody can form a DAO and then you can form it around anything that you want or care about. And in 2021, I was auctioning off this NFT art for charity. And a group of crypto bros online decided that they cared about this enough that they would spin up a DAO together to purchase it.

• 21:14Speaker 05

  But they still had to auction and bid. And then so they all just started sending money to each other. Like, a lot of them had never even met. This was just like their collective goal was to acquire this piece. In the end, there was like a bidding war. It was crazy. In the end, they won. They paid like over half a million dollars for it.

• 21:33Pablo Torre?

  $525,000 for a people pleaser digital original, an NFT, as it was called, during a very strange time known as still, I guess, the pandemic.

• 21:44Speaker 05

  Yes, people were very much indoors, online. So they were looking for things to do and ways to spend their money indoors and online. So, yeah, and then I woke up to this bidding war. And then I guess they won. And then so they then named themselves Pleaser DAO, because that was their shared goal. But then the story didn't stop because they were sort of like the first to do that before that. It was just like individually wealthy people owning expensive pieces of art. But we all own this together.

• 22:18Pablo Torre?

  It was a new development in a strange new world. That was March of 2021. And I remember it vaguely because one of the things that stuck out to me about this, where I was like, this has many familiar dynamics to what annoys me about the whole crypto movement. But your piece of art, which went for $525,000 to this DAO named after you, it went to charity.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  So we ended up basically spinning up like a 501(c)(3). And then we gave out grants of $25,000 to all these different Asian-American related nonprofit organizations.

• 22:57Pablo Torre?

  I was ready to be annoyed and hate all of this. And then I was like, wait a minute, okay, so this whole charitable effort was documented. It went towards stop Asian hate, broadly speaking, during that moment during the pandemic. But it became this feeder system for like small businesses and groups that then actually got to benefit from this DAO.

• 23:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:19Pablo Torre?

  Which is amazing.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Which is really cool.

• 23:22Pablo Torre?

  And so Pleaser DAO, by the way, they don't disband after that. As I'm piecing together, like what else then do they pool their money together to buy? It's wild.

• 23:33Speaker 05

  It's wild. So that was just the first piece that they bought. And then after they bought the Edward Snowden NFT, they accumulated like $5 million at the time, within like 24 hours. And then won it. And then so that went to his charity, Freedom of the Press. And then we went on to acquire a few other pieces, like the Tor Project NFT, which was also a charity piece. And then the original Doge NFT for like $4 million. And that was also a charity. So there was this theme of charity at the time that was going on. Every time they would acquire a new piece, more people would be like, I want to join in.

• 24:16Speaker 05

  And then after the Doge piece, like the more unique one that they acquired together was the Wu-Tang Clan One of One Album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which can be argued to be an inspiration for NFTs even.

• 24:33Pablo Torre?

  Yes, it all takes us, as we go through this trajectory, that takes me to other things that I either support or I'm curious about, whether it's Asian-American issues or Edward Snowden, who's attorney. We have had literally on this show as a guest Ben Weisner, who is the Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU. We've had him on the show to talk about MSG and the surveillance state and all this stuff. Like, there's a spoke leading to him that I didn't [bleep] realize. It brings us to why we're talking here. It is September of 2021. It is the Wu-Tang Clan album. For people who don't know the premise of how this album is, in theory, like art, like a one-of-one art piece, how would you explain it?

• 25:18Speaker 05

  When we say a one-of-one, especially in the world of NFTs, I think in traditional art, they have these terms as well. It just means it's like a unique piece where only one was ever produced. In traditional art, that's easy to understand, right? Like, there's only one real Mona Lisa. Or there's a unique contract where it'll say that this is a unique piece and it's just only this one exists. And then so the Wu-Tang album is inspirational to all of this because obviously, as we know today, music can be copied and shared. But this was like an album that they had made where only one copy of it exists. And it was never released commercially online or duplicated or anything.

• 26:03Speaker 05

  And then so that's how the lore of the album started.

• 26:07Pablo Torre?

  The lore is so extensive. There's a Lord of the Rings dynamic here. And I mean that only partly because the originator, the original artist, you could say, behind it is a guy named Silver Rings. And Silver Rings, for those who are not initiated into the lore of the Wu-Tang Clan, this is somebody who was effectively a protege to RZA. And Silver Rings, the concept of him is that he went from a fan of Wu-Tang. He was the first, I believe, European-based satellite member of the Wu-Tang organization, which, not unlike a DAO, is a group of apparently loosely confederated individuals

• 26:51Pablo Torre?

  who come together, sometimes under common cause. But in general, Silver Rings represented the farm system. There's like a farm system dynamic of Wu-Tang. And so Silver Rings comes up with this premise that in the telling of this, and this has been covered elsewhere, so I'll just speed run through some of it. In the telling of it is, he wants to create a Silver Rings album with Wu-Tang Clan members on it. RZA is convinced by Silver Rings, we should actually do what you just described, a one-of-one Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol-level fine art piece that gets treated with the reverence that the art world gives its one-of-one, all-time great artifacts.

• 27:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would say that's accurate.

• 27:39Speaker 07

  And I just felt, you know, one of the most compelling things was that as long as we can re-identify music as a work of art, you know what I mean? That's what I want. I felt like, I really felt like it was taken from what it really could be, you know? Devalued even, if you could use that word. And to re-inject value back into it, to re-inject admiration of it as art, that was a big goal for me.

• 28:19Pablo Torre?

  And so the whole thing of what you hear in the news is that here's now going to auction this album that you cannot hear unless you bid on it. And now it's becoming familiar to all of the auctions that you've described. Ed, do you remember the first time you heard the name Martin Shkreli?

• 28:38Speaker 05

  I feel like I vaguely heard of it when all the Pharma Bro stuff was going on.

• 28:42Pablo Torre?

  32-year-old former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli thought the drug Deraprim was underpriced. The medication is used to treat a disease that can be fatal to those with a suppressed immune system, such as cancer and HIV patients.

• 28:55Speaker 05

  Last year, fewer than 9,000 prescriptions were written for the pills. Shkreli's company, Touring Pharmaceuticals, bought Deraprim this year and immediately jacked the price up more than 5,000%. If there's a company that was selling an Aston Martin at the price of a bicycle, and we buy that company, and we ask to charge Toyota prices, I don't think that that should be a crime.

• 29:19Pablo Torre?

  And purely legally speaking, Martin Shkreli, the guy who would win "Once Upon a Time" in Shaolin at auction for $2 million, making it the most expensive album in history. Well, Martin Shkreli was right. Raising the price of HIV/AIDS medication 5,500% is not a crime, it turns out. But something else he did was.

• 29:44Speaker 05

  Farmer Bro could be on the verge of giving up a one-of-a-kind album by Wu-Tang Clan after a judge ordered him to forfeit nearly $7.4 million for allegedly defrauding investors in two hedge funds he ran. Because the order would allow the government to go after his personal property if he does not have the cash, the album, along with other assets, such as a $5 million trading account and a Picasso painting, could be seized. Shkreli will have a chance to appeal. The Department of Justice took it, and it was in their custody. And that Pleaser Dow had been able to broker like a deal with the Department of Justice to buy it from them.

• 30:29Pablo Torre?

  Yes, so the reporting is that Pleaser Dow pays the equivalent of $4 million in crypto tied to the dollar, and Pleaser becomes the rightful owner of the album.

• 30:43Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 30:44Pablo Torre?

  And so, when was the first time you heard the album?

• 30:47Speaker 05

  It wasn't like an official event, but a few of the Dow members had the album, and then they were in like a studio somewhere in Brooklyn. So it was just a few people, and then they were like, "Come through, we're playing the album." And then so, I showed up, I think this was in 2022.

• 31:05Pablo Torre?

  This is the part where, when Meth told me this, it blew my mind, although of course, it happened like this, which is that he had never [bleep] heard it. And this speaks now to just like, again, a confederation of artists who are family, they've known each other, the Wu-Tang Clan members have known each other for 25 years, dating back to Staten Island, dating back to New York City, when they were all young kids, becoming like famous in the 90s, becoming like this iconic group to so many people. And the way the album became controversial caught them by surprise, caught Meth by surprise. He didn't know.

• 31:46Speaker 07

  The album was recorded in secret with the members not knowing.

• 31:53Pablo Torre?

  And as RZA explained it onstage with Silver Rings, the surprise around the album's very controversial premise and the whole mystery about what would end up on it, that was kind of by design.

• 32:05Speaker 07

  I guess the best way I could describe it now, after living through it, is like when you do a movie, you go and you do a scene, but you never know until you come to the premiere, they edit you out, they cut you out, or they put more in there. So it's kind of like that revelation.

• 32:19Pablo Torre?

  And so Meth ends up being like interviewed by news outlets, and he basically says like, "Yeah, [bleep] all of this [bleep]."

• 32:27Speaker 07

  F that album, f it. If that's what they're doing, f it. I'm tired of the gimmicks.

• 32:31Pablo Torre?

  And so the opportunity, I mean, this is where I'll now tell you, like, as soon as, as soon as you send me that DM on Instagram, the thing, I text Method Man, and I just want to be, here it is, let me just pull it up, okay. So, so you messaged me on Instagram at like 6:00 PM on December 12th, and December 13th at 8:39 AM, I say, "Uh, Meth, just needed to say, thanks for being so generous with your time coming on the show. I truly love having you and Dan there together. One mission I've already started for 2026. I'm gonna contact the weird crypto art group that paid $4 million for "Once Upon a Time" in Shaolin and find a way to throw a private listening party so the three of us can listen

• 33:16Pablo Torre?

  to it." And Method Man replies, "With your investigative skills, I'm sure you're gonna make that happen." Exclamation point, exclamation point. And we start organizing this very special evening in Brooklyn, that I didn't really believe would happen until I walk in and everybody is actually there.

• 33:39Speaker 05

  And thanks to Spencer from Pleaser Dow for like organizing and setting up the listening party, which is the heart of like, you know, keeping this artwork alive. And definitely for me, like seeing Method Man like actually there was really cool. I mean, he's the star of the show.

• 33:58Pablo Torre?

  And so the other feeling I want to communicate to people and help describe is also just like, there was this suspense, and I was feeling a certain anxiety, because there was no safety net.

• 34:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:10Pablo Torre?

  There was no idea that this might ever make air in any regard. Like, we said to Method Man, "Hey, we are gonna ask you afterwards to review it."

• 34:21Speaker 05

  I mean...

• 34:22Pablo Torre?

  That was like, the dude does not pull punches.

• 34:26Speaker 05

  It was all very meta. I think there's something poetic about the actual bar that we were listening to in called Eavesdrop. It's like we were...

• 34:36Pablo Torre?

  I didn't put that together.

• 34:37Speaker 05

  Right? Like, we were all there to eavesdrop on this album, like Method Man's reaction, like, I, the best way I can describe it is it was very meta, like the feeling.

• 34:51Pablo Torre?

  It kind of felt like we shouldn't be here right now.

• 34:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:55Pablo Torre?

  It kind of felt like, this is a bit too personal, actually.

• 34:58Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 35:03Pablo Torre?

  And so this is where I just got to jump in to tell you, to warn you, that I feel very lucky, grateful even, to tell you that what you're about to hear is just a part, a small part of this album, that as you fully understand, you're not allowed to hear one single second of. And we're gonna play this part uncensored, so fair warning there as well, because I was able to sneak it for you, as well as part of another track, which you'll hear after the break, to give you a sense of what it was actually like in the room that night,

• 35:45Pablo Torre?

  listening alongside Method Man at Eavesdrop to the Wu-Tang album he had never heard before, before he got back on the microphone for us.

• 35:56Pablo Torre?

  And it sounded like this.

• 36:00Pablo Torre?

  Very good swordplay. You are despicable. Well, what do you expect from a criminal? All I want to do is win.

• 36:09Speaker 05

  Hey, nigga, pass the motherfucking weed, nigga. Come on, sir, I just got this shit, man. Yes, sir!

• 36:18Speaker 05

  Wu-Tang Killer B's in the building, baby. Red man in the building, death squad in the building. I ain't that's a rapper.

• 36:30Speaker 05

  You already know Silver Rings was good, man.

• 36:41Speaker 05

  I ain't that's a highness.

• 36:57Pablo Torre?

  This episode is brought to you by ONNIT. You know those days where it's back-to-back meetings, a deadline you're already behind on, and somehow you still have to be present for family time after work? That's basically every Tuesday for me. And on days like that, I reach for AlphaBrain. AlphaBrain is a daily nootropic formula designed to support cognition, memory, attention, focus, and mental clarity. It's not about some artificial jolt. It's about helping you tune out distractions and actually get into the zone when you're deep in a task, whether that's plowing through emails, finishing a project, or just trying to stay sharp through a packed day. What I've noticed is that it supports flow state, that feeling when you're locked in,

• 37:42Pablo Torre?

  fully engaged, and things just click. Plus, it helps with quicker reaction times and everyday concentration when there's a lot competing for your attention. And on the more stressful days, it supports AlphaBrain wave activity to help take the edge off. If your days look anything like mine, juggling work, workouts, kids, whatever's next, AlphaBrain is built for exactly that kind of day. Shop now at ONNIT.com. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com.

• 38:17Pablo Torre?

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about.

• 38:40Pablo Torre?

  Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. With the Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 39:21Pablo Torre?

  If you're listening to this, you've made it to the end of the show. What a remarkably cruel thing we've done to you.

• 39:28Pablo Torre?

  Because you did not have the experience that we just had. I am sitting next to Dan, who is sitting next to Meth. And Dan, for people who did not get to watch Meth listen to his art, can you describe what this looked like?

• 39:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, so beautiful. Wu-Tang, one of the most authentic things in the history of music. Like, really a special group. And that music, for the audio audience that is banned from listening to it, felt to me in this room, I don't know, I'm very eager to hear how he feels about it, but it felt like it reached inside my chest cavity and made my face vibrate from the inside, which is what they do when they go and summon their best energies. The man in front of us is in the competition of words in one of the coolest arts over 50 years of the form, one of the best to do it. And you just witnessed, beyond the music, his vulnerability inside of listening to something

• 40:30Speaker 04

  that was produced for you that he hasn't approved with one of the best tastes in the arts that there have been. So I'm super curious of how all that felt to him because he hasn't given his approval to that art. He didn't know whether it would be good or not. He sat in the middle of this and gave you his vulnerability. I thought from my angle, but I don't want to spoil whatever the secret is on how he felt about what he just heard.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  I can see why people will like it.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  I can see why some people will love it.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  For me, it had a few nostalgic moments on there. I don't know if that's good or bad.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  You can tell that he was emulating RZA's sound as much as possible to the point where it got a little mimicry, a little mimicky, you know what I mean? Like even the last joint, "Gravel Pit," right?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  A bit long sometimes, a bit long sometimes, but that's what producers do. They're like, "Look what I did," you know?

• 41:37Speaker 01

  But all in all, I do not hate this album.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  To be fair, though, your taste is higher than most. I assume you're listening to this with a better ear than anybody in this room.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I know my brothers.

• 41:56Pablo Torre?

  Well, so I want to ask about that. Because it felt super invasive, bordering on uncomfortable for me to watch you close your eyes and be really present in a room where no one has their phone, by the way. So what are you sort of thinking and feeling as you listen to people, your teammates?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  I was trying not to get distracted. A lot of those, oh, Rings got lucky with a lot of them darts, man, because they are so good. My guys sounded really good. Chef could have stayed off the last joint, though. That's not his pace. Not his pace at all. But again, I can see why people will like this album and I can see why people will love this album. Silver Rings did his numbers with this one. The production is on par with some of the stuff RZA used to do back in the day. But again, he had the blueprint right there in front of him. So, you know.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, [BLEEP], I said it again, I don't hate it. Can y'all hear me back there? I don't hate this [BLEEP].

• 43:01Speaker 04

  Did you think, you might, though, given your emotions, like, did you think you'd be able to sort of neutrally and unbiased listen to it and have your mind open, given that you're predisposed to sort of hate it just because of the story that presents it?

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Oh, I have faith in my guys and stuff. I just didn't have a lot of faith in Tariq. I take that back because he did an excellent job. The production he did post, the production he did post, I'm pretty sure them skits run a little long because Chef can be a little long-winded. But I love the spin that he put on it in the beginning. That intro was pretty good. A bit long again.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  I'm just being honest, it was a bit long again. But contrary to what everyone thinks, I have nothing against this guy, Tariq Azugar, Silver Rings. And I'm going to give him his props on this one. Yeah.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  And you guys, and I'm going to validate, this is a valid piece of art right here.

• 44:02Speaker 04

  Would you be interested in hearing more of it? Like, is it, is, how do you?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  I'm not sitting through two hours of anything.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  I meant in private. I didn't, I didn't mean here. I meant in private.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would have, yeah, that would have to be something done in private, you know?

• 44:17Speaker 04

  I would mean as a curiosity only.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. That one with Deck and Jizza, man, that really stood out for me, man. And that guy, Meth, man, Jesus Christ.

• 44:28Pablo Torre?

  So for people who are not watching Meth invasively as I was this entire time, and I apologize for focusing like that. There was a moment when you were mouthing your own words.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the vibe was there.

• 44:44Pablo Torre?

  And so here, for the first time, are some of those lines that he'd submitted for this album.

• 44:52Speaker 07

  When I was young, I used to play in the park. These little girls would eat our candy up and play with our hearts. Much too young to get the panties off. We played till it's dark. Then we would listen for the gunshots. Some shots straying in these hearts. It ain't our fault, just the way we were taught. Never tell on your team or take shorts when you're selling the beans. Catch a body, that's a felony thing. And every dream starts with cream, that's on everything. Wish I could talk to my brother, that's good. Hold up, I can't talk to my brother, he gone. Our folks don't understand the sort of stuff that we on. I'm saying peace to the God, let your knowledge be born. Ay, son, why do good die so young? Feel the pain of the families are freaky, tired and fun. Same game, different day in the sun. Same G, different day in the P's. I hate the same people hating on me.

• 45:36Speaker 07

  Is it my downfall, they waiting to see? I O S comes skating my V. Ex-spouse taking my house, pass force taking my tree. Jam me up while I'm taking the P. Is this the way it's gonna be?

• 45:47Pablo Torre?

  This is the sort of thing that, of course, you've remembered this entire time?

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I've been, I played them, I play them not too frequently, but I played them, when I first did them, I played them a lot. So it kind of gets etched in your brain. You don't know it all, but you know certain parts. Especially when you kill a line, like, geez.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  For real.

• 46:08Pablo Torre?

  One of the things, before we let you go here, that I can't help but think is that you've been doing this with Wu-Tang to the extent that this feels like you're kind of like a child star who is now

• 46:22Pablo Torre?

  gone through Hollywood, gone through

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:25Pablo Torre?

  classic Hollywood drama with your own teammates.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  We've, we've been through a lot. But I can say at the end of the day, we still treat each other with respect and we still call each other brothers. So that's the point. Yeah. I don't know if y'all heard that in the back, we still call each other brothers.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  The things that happened here would almost predispose you to not like what you're listening to because it was kind of stolen from you.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Pretty much. Well, it was done under false pretenses kind of thing, you know? Maybe there would have been more of an effort on my part if I knew what it was going to be. You know what I mean? And I feel like I was robbed of that. So that's why I have this chip on my shoulder. But again, went in with an unbiased opinion and it's not hard to applaud excellence. And I believe Silver Rings did his thing and I believe now that Skrely's out of the picture, this album is in great hands.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  So you, so you hear it, when you hear it and here's so much long in there, what you're hearing is, oh, if you had given me this album, I would have given you 50.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  You saw on that joint, I gave him what, six bars? What was it, six to eight bars? That's what he got mad at me about. He was like, "I didn't get 16, man, I [BLEEP] you."

• 47:47Speaker 04

  But you're mad that it's fat, right? You don't like your, you don't like your, your stuff being fat.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  No, I don't, I don't. I mean, speaking from an art perspective, the time that it takes to create and the way that you envision [BLEEP], you know, you want that to stay pure because that's about the only thing you can control. Outside of that, you can't control anything else, but you can control that. So you don't want someone to take that lightly and do whatever they want to do with it, even though record labels have been doing this [BLEEP] to us for years. The payoff is that we can still get a room like this to listen to said art and be respected as artists. That's the best part of it. Whoa. I be putting the words.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  I'm 55, man, I've done some things.

• 48:44Pablo Torre?

  I've, I've never seen someone wearing a Jets jersey and jet cap being so at peace.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  I like Moosie.

• 49:00Pablo Torre?

  But the thing that I found out today is that I think what we did to our audience that could not listen to this was very cruel. But what we just got to enjoy as people who are always on our phones and cannot be present was feel what it's like to be around someone who was so willing and open to let us into something definitionally private where we should not have been. And so if you got to listen to this part, you made it to the end of the episode, I think you did get to enjoy the best part.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 49:30Pablo Torre?

  So thank you.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  The genuine love, I love that. Respect Pablo. Appreciate you.

• 49:41Pablo Torre?

  We end every episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out by saying what we found out today.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. We found out that that album ain't as bad as I expected it to be.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  What do you guys think?

• 50:02Speaker 01

  This is definitely like, this is fly on the wall shit right here. I love this.

• 50:07Pablo Torre?

  Well, what I found out, Dan, is that I am very grateful that you guys became friends.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  That's my dude right there.

• 50:16Pablo Torre?

  I mean, for real.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Dan is the genuine article. He's a very emotional guy, but...

• 50:21Pablo Torre?

  He wanted you to cry. He was asking you.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  You know what?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  When I was young, we used to play in the park. These little girls, we'd give her candy, help them play. By the time I got to the part of dirty and, yeah, there was tears there. I sucked them [BLEEP] up, though.

• 50:49Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Laura Newcomb, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello. Studio engineering by RG Systems, sound design by Andrew Bersick, digital strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern, theme song as always by John Bravo. And we'll talk to you next time.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  I'm glad I could help. Maybe I'm a junior investigative journalist in training.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Enjoy, Pablo. Salute, brother.

• 51:37Speaker 05

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about.

• 52:00Speaker 05

  Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. With the Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO, and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.