A pharmaceutical CEO who made headlines earlier this year by increasing the price of life-saving HIV drugs by over 5,000 percent has purchased the most expensive album ever recorded.
Martin Shkreli, dubbed “the most hated man on the internet,” paid a reported $2 million for the exclusive listening rights to "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin," is a one-of-a-kind recording by hip-hop group Wu Tang Clan.
Shkreli made headlines earlier this year when his company, Turning Pharmacueticals, purchased the rights to manufacture HIV drug Daraprim and promptly increased the price from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill.
The move prompted intense reaction from the internet and public figures. Hillary Clinton called the company’s move “outrageous,” and Donald Trump called Shkreli a “spoiled brat.”
The album, which comes in two hand-crafted nickel-silver boxes, was created over the span of six years by Staten Island-based group. Shkreli cannot “communicate” or share the content of the album for 88 years.
According to Bloomberg, Shkreli’s favorite Wu Tang Clan song is 1993’s “C.R.E.A.M.” The chorus of the song? “Cash rules everything around me / C.R.E.A.M., get the money / Dollar, dollar bill y’all.”
Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.
