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RZA Says Martin Shkreli 'Can Do What He Wants' With Wu-Tang Album

By Savannah Cox | January 6, 2016 5:52pm
 Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA opened up on Martin Shkreli's contentious purchase of the one-of-a-kind Wu Tang album.
Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA opened up on Martin Shkreli's contentious purchase of the one-of-a-kind Wu Tang album.
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Sorry, Wu-Tang Clan fans: cash really does rule everything around you, which is why RZA has no hard feelings about Martin Shkreli's purchase of a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang album.

In an interview airing tonight on Bloomberg TV (and available online now), Wu-Tang member RZA opens up on popularly-despised "pharmabro" Martin Shkreli's purchase of the sole copy of "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin," saying that it's not up to him what Shkreli does with it.

"He bought it, he can do what he wants," the rapper said.

"If he want to be philanthropic, he could do something that could allow more people to hear the record. If he concurs to that, than that would be something really good for art and really good for the Wu fans," RZA said.

Shkreli — who garnered international ire after he raised the price of an AIDS treatment drug by 5,000 percent and was later arrested for securities fraud — bought the album for $2 million in a 2015 online auction.

After his arrest, a fake sales contract excerpt surfaced which said that actor Bill Murray — having appeared in the 2003 film "Coffee and Cigarettes" with RZA and GZA — could potentially "heist" the album back from Shkreli with "no legal repurcussions."

While the "contract" was intended to be a joke, in the Bloomberg interview RZA makes clear that Murray will have no suck luck.

"Bill Murray is not in the contract," the rapper told Bloomberg.

Instead of firing back at Shkreli, who has fired shots at the rapper, in the interview RZA chose to talk about art.

"The beautiful thing about art, from my standpoint, is that it has no discrimination,” RZA said. “What we’ve done is historical, and you can’t remove that.”

The interview airs tonight at 6 p.m., on Bloomberg TV.