RZA sat down for a fairly divisive interview with Bloomberg, discussing Hillary Clinton, Black Lives Matter, and everybody’s favorite ex-pharmaceutical mogul Martin Shkreli. The Smoking Section will cover some of the other bits in a later post, but the Shkreli remarks were really the bits that felt fun. Plus he puts to rest all those Bill Murray rumors.
First things first, RZA talks about his first meeting with Shkreli. This is before all of the arrests and criticism in the media, a point where RZA wasn’t aware who he was discussing this album with:
“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. We talked briefly about where he comes from, briefly about what Wu-Tang means.”
He didn’t get a chance to read him, which is likely breaking some sort of Wu-Tang rule. RZA’s growing soft in these later, more financially sound years. If he did get a good read on Shkreli, he might’ve seen this coming:
“I bought the most expensive album in the history of mankind and f—ing RZA is talking s–t behind my back and online in plain sight,” Shkreli said in a Dec. 16 interview with the publication HipHopDX. “If I hand you $2 million, f—ing show me some respect.”
If you hand me $2 million, you’ll never see me again. Facts are facts. But you can’t buy respect, so that’s Shkreli’s mistake. Mistakes all around in this business relationship. As for the album in question, RZA claims he has already cashed the check and the past is the past. He does hope that Shkreli will end up doing the right thing with the album:
“If Mr. Shkreli feels philanthropic, he has the power to do something really cool, you know what I mean?” RZA said. “He could do something that would allow more people to hear the record.” He suggested releasing the album publicly, or letting it tour in museums.
And as for Bill Murray? He’s not involved, sadly. He’s off somewhere eating marshmallows, playing golf, and maybe thinking about making Caddyshack 3. What he’s not doing is secretly formulating a plan to scale the side of Martin Shkreli’s apartment building and steal the Wu-Tang album:
“Bill Murray’s not in the contract.”
I’ll say this. Saying Bill Murray is not in the contract is exactly what someone would say if they wanted to get Bill Murray to steal back a $2 million album. And it’s all being discussed, in secret, right now, in a the back of a Chinese restaurant.
(Via Bloomberg)
