If you were on the internet in 2015, you likely followed the twisty tale of the Wu-Tang Clan ‘s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin . The Staten Island hip-hop titans conceived of the album as a conceptual artwork, a protest against the cheapening of music in the age of widespread piracy. Rather than release the music to the general public, the work was sold at auction for a reported $2 million to a then-anonymous American buyer, seemingly proving that music could sell at the level of Picasso and Warhol.

It proved a Pyrrhic victory when the buyer was revealed to be the hated “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli. The episode was a bitter lesson for the group, resulting in resentment and division. Even Clan member Method Man said, “Fuck that album. … When music can’t be music and y’all turning it into something else, fuck that. Give it to the people, if they want to hear the shit, let them have it.…