Last week, IRL troll Martin Shkreli was found guilty on three counts of fraud and conspiracy, resulting in a possible 20-year sentence in prison. I initially hoped this conviction would mean that he'd stop fucking with the hip-hop scene... and I might've jinxed things, as he's totally now just turning on stuff like the $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time In Shaolin during interviews.
Apparently, there's a YouTube account called "Best of Martin Shkreli" that archives Shkreli's livestreams. One of them features almost an hour of Shkreli being interviewed, and at about 48 minutes in, Shkreli just presses play on Once Upon and lets it rock for the last 10 minutes of the interview. Shkreli brought up his purchasing of the album, calling it a "donation."
"I donated $2 million to Wu-Tang," he said. "I got a mixtape in return, it was a wonderful investment. I view it as a donation. People might see that as splurging. I don’t think there are many people in the world who have patronized hip-hop to the extent I have." Not sure if this is more of Shkreli's trollery, but you have to wonder how far some hip-hop fans would go if they had the funds Shkreli had from his hedge-fund fuckery.
That isn't the only rap album Shkreli is holding onto, though. D.C. reporter Alex Pfeiffer shared some info on Twitter recently about how Lil Wayne's Carter V landed in Shkreli's possession. "I'll always remember how Shkreli told me he got the Carter 5," Pfeiffer tweeted. "Wayne sold his Bugatti and left the CD in there..new owner sold it to shkreli." Back in December 2016, Shkreli told DJ Akademiks that he believed the "sale" of Carter V was legal. "Criminal law? Forget it," Shkreli said. "But [in terms of] civil law, I don’t believe that Lil Wayne could sue me. I don’t believe Birdman can sue me. I don’t think Universal could sue me. It’s a legal sale."
This May, almost six months later, Wayne's legal team threatened to sue Shkreli if he played any more tracks from Carter V—but I'm sleep.
