The lore of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, once bought by Martin Shkreli, is explored in a rambling film produced by RZA

For every reason except one, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, the seventh album by the Wu-Tang Clan, should’ve been a commercial hit. The 31-track double album, recorded in secret between 2007 and 2013, reunited all of the remaining members of the hallowed Staten Island rap crew and featured eye-catching collaborators from the standard (Redman, offshoot group Wu-Tang Killa Bees) to the unexpected (Cher, Game of Thrones actor Carice van Houten). The sound, at least according to those involved, harkened back to the glory days of the group’s beginnings in the 90s.

But for years, almost no one heard it. The group only issued a single copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin – on CD, ensconced within layers of filigreed silver – with the stipulation, in legalese, that it could not be used for any commercial purposes for 88 years. The decree, either a stunt or a bold artistic statement on streaming’s devaluation of music, depending on your generosity and perhaps your net worth, succeeded in drumming up plenty of hype. And if you were anywhere around the blogosphere or cable news in 2015, you may recall that the beneficiary of that hype – the purchaser and thus single intended listener of this $2m musical treasure – was one Martin Shkreli, the “pharma bro” widely despised for gleefully hiking the costs of prescription drugs for profit.

Rapper to visit Lincolnshire town 16 years after saying he had never been there in his hit Pass Out

The rapper Tinie Tempah has said he will finally visit Scunthorpe – 16 years after he announced to the world that he had never been to the town in his number one hit Pass Out.

His decision follows a campaign by fans, led by Ben Johns, a Scunthorpe resident, who carried a cardboard cutout of the artist around the Lincolnshire town and encouraged people to pre-save Tempah’s new album.

Jay-Z in 8, the rap mogul’s HBO docuseries, covers his life and career in effort to mend his image – with no pushback. Why is he so fixated on the court of public opinion?

During the finale of Jay-Z’s Jay-Z in 8, the recent eight-part HBO documentary series on his life and career, the billionaire rap mogul talked with record producer Rick Rubin about the song Family Feud from his 4:44 album. He clarified one of its lyrics, “Al Sharpton in the mirror takin’ selfies / How is him or Pill Cosby ‘posed to help me?”, in which he chided Sharpton, the civil rights leader, and Cosby, the disgraced actor-comedian, for constantly criticizing rap music. He called Sharpton an “extortionist” who goes “from place to place” demanding: “You want our support … give us the money.” Listening to him chastise Sharpton, I pondered how he doesn’t see himself as a similar figure.

Starting in 2019, Jay-Z partnered with the NFL in 2019 as entertainment director, deciding the Super Bowl half-time performers and working with the league on other community endeavors. Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback, has recently alleged that the deal came after NFL owners decided they needed a “Black face” to help them quell outrage from Black people after Kaepernick was blackballed by the league for kneeling during the national anthems as a form of protest against police brutality. Jay-Z was lambasted for undercutting Kaepernick’s cause for personal gain, marring his reputation with many fans who came to view him as the same counterinsurgent figure he criticized in the documentary.