The $2 Million Wu-Tang Clan Album

Summary

The Nightly: The $2 Million Wu-Tang Clan Album
Date: June 6, 2026
Hosts: Wils Pelton ("A"), Josh Gondelman ("B")
Duration: ~19 min (Content ~0:25–18:19)

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Overview

Tonight’s episode of The Nightly is a cozy late-night chat between hosts Wils Pelton and Josh Gondelman, which takes a sleepy, winding journey from home decor misadventures to a deep dive into the bizarre, legendary story behind the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin”—the $2 million single-copy album auctioned to (and seized from) Martin Shkreli. They muse on scarcity in art, personal niche creations, and the value of keeping some things rare or private—threaded with warmth, humor, and relatable tangents perfect for late-night listening.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wils’ Ongoing Home Decor Saga (00:25–04:34)

• Wils shares updates about rearranging his living room and bedroom, venting about disappointing shelves purchased via the “Lug” app (00:56).
• The struggle and existential angst of solo home design: “I always am buying stuff. That’s the problem with reorganizing.” (03:14, Wils)
• Both hosts joke about the need for more opinions when decorating alone. Josh talk about not knowing where to put a plant, and how consensus helps (03:41, Josh).

2. Music for the New Season & an Album with a Legend (04:46–05:53)

• Josh describes seasonal music habits, excitedly reminiscing about Method Man and Redman’s Blackout album as his “fun, nice weather, bopping around the city” pick (04:46).
• He pivots to the infamous one-copy Wu-Tang Clan album: “Do you remember the Wu-Tang album that they made one copy of and then they auctioned it out?” (05:19, Josh).

3. The Story of “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” (05:53–10:16)

• Concept & Purpose:
  • RZA and producer Cilvaringz created the single-copy album as a rebuttal to the “music is free now” attitude—an art project to showcase value through scarcity (06:48, Josh).
  • “It’s like almost a performance project…you can showcase value by making it scarce.” (06:59, Josh).
• The Buyer:
  • Martin Shkreli—the notorious “pharma bro”—bought it for $2 million in 2015 (08:20, Wils/Josh).
  • Wils guesses the price exactly, prompting both to savor the rarely experienced joy of a correct big-number guess (08:25–09:37).
    • “I literally feel like I might as well have just won $2 million.” (09:34, Wils)
• Aftermath:
  • Shkreli’s fraud conviction led to the album being seized and auctioned off for more than $2 million—eventually bought by a collective of NFT collectors, “a very 2021” occurrence (10:07, Josh).

4. Scarcity, Art, and the Allure of Secret Experiences (10:24–13:46)

• The hosts debate the idea/artistry of unreleased or rare art:
  • “The concept of listening to an album that only you or your trusted confidants can listen to is really crazy. It’s really, really cool.” (10:25, Wils)
  • Josh points out the distinction between scarcity by expense vs. scarcity by occurrence, likening it to the ephemeral nature of live theater (11:10–11:34, Josh/Wils).
• Wils recalls attending Slave Play and the unique temporality of live performance, finding “amazing” value in knowing it was “for a specific time and place” (11:40–12:15, Wils).
• The artistic philosophy of not caring if work ages well: “I actually am not super concerned with whether or not it’s aging well, because… I didn’t make a piece of timeless art. I made a piece of art that was prescient at the time.” (12:32, Wils)

5. Personal Scarcity & Limiting Art’s Reach (14:08–16:32)

• Wils shares thoughts on making his Patreon podcast more exclusive—and the odd feeling of future fame bringing past words to the surface (14:08).
  • “I would like to be more well known…like, wow, there’s just hours and hours of recordings of me talking with my best friend saying stuff that sometimes I don’t even know if I believe.” (14:38, Wils)
• Josh and Wils discuss resisting the social media “everything for everyone” pressure, cherishing the idea of art made “for the people that will care about them.” (16:07, Josh)
  • “I want it to be for the people who like it.” (16:30, Wils)
  • “Niche things are cool at the end of the day.” (16:37, Wils)

6. Memorable Secret Shows (16:40–17:35)

• Josh’s favorite example of exclusive, ephemeral art: John Hodgman’s “Super Secret Society” show in a crypt at Greenwood Cemetery.
  • “It was…extra special to get to see it in this place…It’s gonna happen once, it’s gonna happen in this weird, intimate venue, and it’s not ever supposed to happen again.” (17:21, Josh)

7. Nightly Wrap-Up – Art, Intimacy, Bedtime (17:35–18:19)

• The hosts gently cement the metaphor of bed as the ultimate niche, private space.
  • “Bed—the most intimate venue of all.” (17:41, Josh)
  • “The crypt of the home, exactly…I’m gonna go to sleep in my intimate space where no one else can bother me. And it’s just for people who like it.” (17:48–18:04, Wils)
  • “Good night, Wils…retreating to my niche venue for less mass produced art—by which I mean my really loud snoring.” (18:07, Josh)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the scarcity gesture:
  • “It’s like almost a performance project…you can showcase the value [of music] by making it scarce.” (06:59, Josh)
• On exclusive listening:
  • “Imagine, though, like, the album’s so bad, they’re like, we don’t even have to try hard on this at all. One idiot’s gonna listen to it.” (10:25, Wils)
• On transient art:
  • “I think there’s like such an interesting conversation about…making something that doesn’t age—just like, no, it happened and then it was done.” (12:15, Josh)
• On gatekeeping podcasts:
  • “Maybe I’m like, this [Patreon] podcast should be…the podcast really should be, there should be a higher barrier for entry. It’s only…real ones only.” (14:54, Wils)
• On keeping art niche:
  • “I think it’s really nice to keep things a little bit, like, for the people that will care about them.” (16:07, Josh)
• On bed as venue:
  • “Bed—the most intimate venue of all…The crypt of the home, exactly.” (17:41 & 17:49, Josh & Wils)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:25 Home decor woes, solo rearranging and the struggle of buying furniture.
• 04:46 Transition to spring music and the Wu-Tang single-copy album anecdote.
• 06:48 The philosophy of scarcity in art, RZA’s intentions, and auction setup.
• 08:20 Martin Shkreli, the $2 million price tag, and aftermath.
• 10:25 The allure and weirdness of ultra-scarce art experiences.
• 11:34–13:46 Parallels with theater, temporality, and archival obsessions.
• 14:08 Wils’s podcast, exclusivity, and privacy for creators.
• 16:07 Resisting mass reach, the joys of small audiences, and “real ones.”
• 17:05 The secret crypt show story.
• 17:41 Humorous “good night” round up with bed-as-venue metaphors.

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Summary in a Nutshell

The Nightly’s episode “The $2 Million Wu-Tang Clan Album” drifts compassionately and humorously through stories of rare art, the burden and thrill of exclusivity, and the preciousness of creating for a small, caring audience. At its heart, it’s a soothing reminder that some experiences—and spaces—are most meaningful because they’re not for everyone, but for those who truly connect. Perfectly mellow fodder for bedtime daydreams.

Transcript

[A]

Audio for sleep by hatch. Hey there. I'm Wills.

[B]

And I'm Josh. Welcome to the nightly from Hatch, where your late night thoughts go to rest. Wills. So we were speaking recently on the podcast about your emerging and blossoming home decor. And you told me before we got started tonight as we were getting into the pillow fort that there has been a big update, and I would love to hear it if it's something you feel like you can share with the listeners as well.

[A]

It's not. This isn't too private. I basically last night rearranged my entire living room and even my bedroom a little bit, too. Last time we were speaking, I was like, I'm getting these shelves. I got the shelves. I did not like them.

[B]

Whoa. Because you had to. You had to get them from like. Yeah, you. You downloaded an app. I downloaded Strength or whatever drag was it.

[A]

Lug. It was luck. I wish it was called Strength.

[B]

But wait, do you remember while we're getting into this? Because this is all I could think about when you brought up lug. Do you remember the boots? Lugs with a Z.

[A]

That sounds familiar.

[B]

They were like.

[A]

Oh, they're like. They're like knockoff Timberlands.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They were big. When I was in school, any brand

[A]

that has a Z at the end of it, it's amazing what they're doing.

[B]

It's such a 90s, early 2000, like, hip hop culture, literally.

[A]

They're like, these are urban. It's like, okay. But yeah, I. I use this app, Lug. I got these shelves. It wasn't that big. I mean, look, part of buying furniture that I have had to come to accept is that, like, I just might not like it. Especially when I'm, like, buying stuff on Facebook or whatever. It's like, I don't really know what it looks like. And then whatever, it's there and you like it or you don't. And I didn't like it. And I didn't like them so much that I was like, it's time for me to rearrange my entire living room.

[B]

Are these new book. Are these new. Not bookshelves. Are these new shelves part of it? Or were you, like, I've got to rearrange it. And these, they're hitting the bricks.

[A]

They're gone, but I'm going to. Nonetheless. I rearrange, basically. I just. I made my living room a little bit more like, segmented so that, like, the couch area feels more separate from the dining area. And I think it's good. I. It's very like, work in progress now, which is completely overwhelming because it's just, like, changing any change, but gets more change. And you guys, guess what? That's philosophy for that actually applies to a lot of things.

[B]

That's right. It's not just where you're conscious.

[A]

No, it's more. It's more.

[B]

It's bigger. Bigger than that.

[A]

It's much bigger. And so now I am like, okay, there's other stuff I'm gonna have to buy, which I will, I guess. It's just. It's always. I'm like, I always am buying stuff.

[B]

Yeah, that's the problem with reorganizing.

[A]

I know. But such is life, I guess. I know living alone is amazing and lovely, and I can't recommend it enough, and I'm so happy to do it. And then it comes to, like, the interior design part, and it's, like, completely overwhelming on so many different levels where it's like, I have to get the stuff alone to move the stuff Al. I have to figure out where this stuff goes alone. And you really need, like. You really need opinions with that kind of stuff.

[B]

I like a consensus. There's also certain things that I just don't know. I would never know when occasionally someone will bring us a plant as a gift. And it's like, I don't know where to put that.

[A]

I have no idea where that should go.

[B]

We got a really nice. I think it was a peace lily, and we just, like, put it on the floor next to the tv, and it was, like, very beautiful. And it was the one plant we've ever had that, like, thrived for six months or something, and. But it just was always in the way, and we had no idea. Like, we're like, where do people put plants?

[A]

I know. I think plants are good. Like space fillers. I found, like, if you have a gap where it feels like that's a little bit odd, that is a nice place for a plant to go.

[B]

Yeah, no, we don't have a lot of.

[A]

You don't have a lot of gaps.

[B]

Space.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We're a gapless home.

[A]

The whole interior design thing is like a com. It's just so stressful to. But I'm trying my best to make it work. But, Josh, I'm curious what's on your mind and what you've been thinking about lately.

[B]

Okay. So whenever spring hits, there's, like, a bunch of music that I, like, have let gather dust all winter. Like, not, you know, not physical records, even. Just, like, streaming and downloads and stuff that is like, oh, this is springtime music. And one of those albums for me is Method man and Redman's album Blackout from 1999, I think late 1999. And it's like, oh, this is like a fun, nice weather, bopping around the city album. But that made me think about, do you remember the Wu Tang album that they made one copy of and then they auctioned it out? Do you know what I'm talking about?

[A]

But I'm so excited to learn.

[B]

This is so. This was probably like 8 to 11 years ago.

[A]

Oh, wow. Okay. So pretty recently.

[B]

Pretty recently. Especially considering the. The arc of throughout time, honey.

[A]

It bends towards justice.

[B]

I'm always saying that. And they. So they put out this album and they were like, we've got one copy of this album. We're not going to release it digitally and we're going to auction it off to the highest bidder.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And then the guy who bought it was that guy Martin Shkreli, who. Yeah.

[A]

Wait, he did crimes. Financial crimes.

[B]

He did crimes. They called him the pharma bro because he just has like a real smug face. And he had been. I think his big professional success was like finding a medication that there was some like regulation on that price. He just realized like, oh, this company could be charging like way more for this life saving medication. And then they did. And people really upset.

[A]

Yeah, of course. Amazing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Thank God.

[B]

Cool guy and innovator. It's like kind of what our whole economy is based on now. Okay. It is the seventh. I'm looking it up right now. Once Upon a Time in Shaolin was the name of the album. It's Wu Tang Clan's seventh album. Only one copy was created with no ability to download or stream it. And this was. So the reason that it existed was that RZA of the Wu Tang Clan and a producer named Silver Rings that he was working with were like, oh, people don't value music anymore. Like it's a. People treat it like it's free. I never have to pay for it. It just kind of comes and goes. I don't have to pay attention to it. So this was kind of an. It's like almost a performance project. Totally to say, no, this is something of value. And you can manufacture or you can showcase the value by making it scarce. And this was. I was right. It was 11 years ago. This was 2015. The winning bidder, guess how much he paid for this album.

[A]

Okay. So obviously Martin Shkreli is very rich.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And Wu Tang Clan is very famous.

[B]

It is a lot of money. It's not gonna. You're not gonna be like a hundred dollars. I mean, it is like.

[A]

Well, I was gonna say $2 million, but is that crazy?

[B]

$2 million is not only not crazy, it's lower. Exactly. Right. Oh, my gosh.

[A]

I feel like I just won a prize. I feel like I just won $2 million.

[B]

Wills. A few weeks ago, I was doing a pub chat with Matt.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And he asked how far from earth the Artemis two astronauts traveled. And I guessed 250,000 miles. And the answer was 246,000 miles or 249,000 miles.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

And it was the best feeling I felt in probably a decade to guess a number.

[A]

Right. It's like, wow. What? There's an honor.

[B]

There's so many numbers.

[A]

It's just, in case you guys don't understand, kind of like how really the. How special this is. It's like, think about how many numbers there are between 1 and 2 million. And I could have guessed any of those numbers, but I guess too many.

[B]

Wait, but it's not just that. Think of all the numbers bigger than 2 million. There's actually way more of them. So true. Yeah. So this is. Of all that I'm. This is incredible. Even witnessing you guess this. Well, my heart is pumping. I feel like we just won the worst.

[A]

I literally feel like I might as well have just won $2 million.

[B]

But then when he. As part of his conviction, Martin Shkreli, for securities fraud, a federal court seized assets to, like. Because. Yeah, because he had been committing fraud and had to pay people back. And so the. The court seized the album.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

And then they sold it to the Department of Justice, sold it to a corporate entity for. For more than $2 million to cover his debt.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then it was sold to a collective of NFT collectors. So That's a very. 2021. That could have only happened in 2021. An NFT collector.

[A]

That's a timestamp on that. Well, okay. And so it's still. But it's still just in the possession of one person or a small group

[B]

of people, I guess.

[A]

So. Interesting. I mean, that's so crazy to know. Like, it's like. Imagine, though, like, the album's so bad, they're like, we don't even have to try hard on this at all. One idiot's gonna listen to it. I mean, the concept of, like, listening to an album that only you or, like, your. You and your trusted confidants can listen to is really crazy. It's really, really cool.

[B]

Yeah, I. I love. You know, I think this. This particular album took a bunch of twists and turns that were a little unsavory and a little losery, but I don't blame the Wu Tang Clan for that.

[A]

No, not at all. They did a. They did a cool thing.

[B]

They did a cool thing. I love the idea of experiences that are not rarefied because they're expensive, but because they're only gonna happen once or happen a few times and just aren't recorded for mass consumption. I think it leads to really fun, intimate artistic experiences.

[A]

Completely. I mean, that's kind of the whole thing with theater.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was just thinking about that the other day because I feel like there's so many plays that you're like, I wonder what. There's plays where you're. Well, actually, I was thinking about this specifically in the context of slave play, which is, of course, a Jeremy O. Harris classic, who. I freaking just shout out to that guy. I would love to work with him or something. But I basically, I was just thinking about it because I'm like, I saw that play when it was on Broadway or whatever, and I was like, I would be so curious to see it now and kind of the politics of it and how it. How it would feel now. But there's also amazing that I can't. Like, it's so cool with like, live performance like that, where you're kind of like, well, it was for a specific time and place.

[B]

Yeah. I think there's like such an interesting conversation about, like, did this. Excuse me. Did this work of art age well, did it age badly? And like, there's kind of an interesting thing of like, making something that doesn't age just like, no, it happened and then it was done.

[A]

Yeah. And like, the context of this thing is that I made it during this time. So I actually am not super concerned with whether or not it's aging well, because that's not the. I didn't make a piece of.

[B]

For that.

[A]

Yeah. Timeless art. I made a piece of art that was, like, prescient at the time.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Yeah. But no, I mean, that's really cool.

[B]

No, I really want to hear it, though. The. Personally, I know. I think there have been excerpts that have streamed at various times.

[A]

Yeah, well, it seems. It seems like it would be hard to keep a complete lid on it.

[B]

I don't know. The. There's also so much. I mean, this is just my own fascination and like, nerdery. But there. There was so much, like, lore with Wu Tang about, like, secret or lost recordings. Because there was, I think, in the, like, mid-90s, maybe a flood. Like, RZA's studio got flooded. So all this production work he'd been doing was ruined.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

And was, like, never recovered. Yeah. So, like, you know, it's just such an interesting thing of, like, how this one artist thinks about scarcity and immediacy and posterity in, like, a really interesting

[A]

way when you think about it, it's deep.

[B]

Yeah. If you were going to have any work of art that was like, this should belong to one person, or it should be like. Like, in a secret place or performance in a place that would, like, what, do you have a dream thing or something that exists that you're like, this should exist in this special context.

[A]

Well, that's kind of how I feel about my podcast that I do on Patreon is what's making me laugh, is because we do. I do a podcast behind a paywall. And it's very. Like, the context of that is very much like, you guys are paying for this. Not that I'm saying the most outrageous things in the world, but it is, like, oftentimes it's stuff I would not say if I wasn't behind a panel. And I also. Another thing that I say on my other podcast with my friend Hannah is that I will say, say often is that I'm like, y', all, this is not gonna live forever. Like, this podcast will be deleted, and it will be deleted sooner than you think it will. Like me or not, I'm just so. I think about this a lot in. Regarding. In regards to the podcast, that podcast in particular, because I would like to be more well known that I am now, I guess. Like, if things go to plan, I'm like, wow. There's just hours and hours of recordings of me talking with my best friend saying stuff that sometimes I don't even know if I believe it. So maybe that maybe I'm like, this should be the podcast. Really should be. There should be a higher barrier for entry. It's only for. It's only real ones only.

[B]

That's right. Real ones only. The podcast rule. Well, I. I think there's so much. Like, for years and years, it was like, do everything. I mean, and there still is this idea that, like, if you're making art, it has to be on social media. It doesn't exist. Or you kind of always have to be making yourself down there. And I think, like, I've gotten more into the idea of, like, oh, but not everything. And, like, I. Even the remove of. I Write a newsletter on Mondays that even that which I will share on social media is not made for social media. And so, like, the idea that you have to, like, go to either receive the email or go to the link and read it, rather than just, like, be yelled at. Right. On a platform by someone who saw, like, four words that you wrote and it's like, well, now. Now my opinions are your problem. And then just yell at you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

About a tangential argument they were having. So, like, I think it's really nice to keep things a little bit, like, for the people that will care about them.

[A]

Yeah. Because it really is, like, whatever, everything that you've said, but the how, the, like, algorithm, it's just like, okay, so this is for everyone. And I don't want it to be for everyone necessarily.

[B]

I want it to be.

[A]

I want to be for the people who like it.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I want it to be for the people who like it. Please. Please.

[B]

Yeah, totally.

[A]

Niche Things are cool at the end of the day is how I feel.

[B]

I love it. I love, like, weird things. One of my favorite things I ever was. John Hodgman, the writer and comedian and actor, used to do these shows called Secret Society. And he did one, I think, called Super Secret Society. And a friend of mine snuck me in, and it was in a crypt in Greenwood Cemetery.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

And I don't think maybe he recorded it. I know nobody else was allowed to do any of that. And Jonathan Coulton, the singer, songwriter, played a bunch of songs, and it was really lovely and special. And I like. You know, I think if I'd seen that show at a giant theater, I would have been like, this was really nice, but it was, like, extra special to get to see it in this place. That was like, it's gonna happen once. It's gonna happen in this weird, intimate venue, and it's not supposed. Ever supposed to happen.

[A]

That's. I mean, that's so cool. Well, now it's time for us to go to sleep in our Crips. Of course.

[B]

That's right. Bed. The most intimate venue of all. Bed.

[A]

Our own personal crib, which I think.

[B]

Yeah. The crypt of the home.

[A]

The crypt of the home, exactly. Yeah. But I just think I. I think that's what. That's where I'll leave it. So I'm gonna go to sleep in my intimate space where. Where no one else can bother me. And it's just for people who like it. Good night, Josh.

[B]

Good night, Wells. I, too, am retreating to my niche venue for less mass produced art by which I mean my really loud snoring.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Good night.

[A]

Sam sa.

[B]

Sam. Sa. Sat sa. Foreign. To learn more about our phone free light and audio experience, head to Hatch Co. You can also follow us at Hatch Podcasts.