Bizarre story behind world’s most expensive album

Utah: A hip hop miracle was happening Friday afternoon in a mansion in the mountains of Utah. The sole physical copy of the Wu Tang Clan s 31 track...

Utah: A hip-hop miracle was happening Friday afternoon in a mansion in the mountains of Utah.

The sole physical copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s 31-track double album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” - the most expensive piece of recorded music in the world - was being played at a listening party for only the seventh time in its history, for about 40 people at the Sundance Film Festival.The party was something of a prison break for the album, which was first bought at a 2015 auction for $2m by now-convicted fraudster and “Pharma Bro,” Martin Shkreli.

The album’s remarkable journey is the subject of “The Disciple,” a documentary from director Joanna Natasegara that premiered at the festival Thursday. Recorded in secret from 2007 to 2013, “Shaolin” features verses from almost every member of the legendary hip-hop collective, as well as from Method Man’s closest rap collaborator Redman and Wu-Tang affiliate group the Killa Beez, alongside FC Barcelona players, the Dutch actress Carice van Houten and Cher.

Wu-Tang’s de facto leader RZA and his “student,” Dutch-Moroccan rapper-producer Tarik “Cilvaringz” Azzougarh, conceived of it as an art project and a commentary on music being cheapened by pirating and the internet.

“We’ll make one single album, treat it like it’s the Mona Lisa,” RZA says in a podcast interview that opens the film.