Overview
- Journalist Pablo Torre located the sole copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin and played portions of it for Method Man at a Brooklyn listening session on Friday, and short clips from the session have been shared publicly.
- After hearing the album for the first time, Method Man said he “doesn’t hate it” and praised the production, revising earlier criticism that the project’s release strategy devalued the music.
- PleasrDAO, which bought the album from the U.S. Department of Justice in 2021, still holds the work and has previously issued five‑minute NFT snippets and curated private plays rather than a public release.
- The album’s provenance — bought by Martin Shkreli in 2015, seized by federal authorities after his conviction, and sold to PleasrDAO — remains tied to active legal questions, including whether Shkreli made unauthorized copies.
- Conceived as a one‑of‑one museum piece with an intended 88‑year listening embargo, the record’s renewed public exposure and a Netflix documentary could increase pressure for wider access or trigger further legal tests over ownership and control.