Leave it to Pulitzer Prize winner Pablo Torre to give Method Man the first listen of his own group Wu-Tang Clan’s fabled 1-of-1 album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. As documented in the latest episode of his Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, the journalist held a private Brooklyn listening party for the controversial project, which was initially owned by “pharmadouche” Martin Shkreli and is now held by digital arts collective PleasrDAO.
Torre was only able to sneak snippets of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin into the episode, which mainly focuses on the extensive lore behind the album before revealing Meth’s reaction.
The listening session came together after digital creator and NFT artist Emily Yang (aka pplpleasr) saw a previous episode of PTFO featuring Method Man, when Torre vowed to find a way for the rapper to hear the album. Yang, after whom PleasrDAO is named, reached out to Torre and connected him with the cryptocurrency collective.
For context, producer Cilvaringz (aka Tarik Azzougarh) masterminded Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, essentially pasting together separately recorded verses from group members who had no idea what the project sounded like or how it would come together. In a nutshell, it wasn’t a proper Wu-Tang record, but rather a Cilvaringz album featuring verses from the Staten Island collective that he convinced RZA to turn into a one-of-a-kind work of art.
Meth had long been one of its loudest critics, telling XXL in 2015, “Fuck that album” after learning about its 88-year copyright. “I’m tired of this shit and I know everybody else is tired of it, too,” he said. ” I haven’t heard anything like that, but if they’re doing crap like that, fuck that album. Straight up. I’m just keeping it 100.”
In 2021, PleasrDAO acquired the album for $4 million after the federal government seized it from Shkreli. The collective made it available as an NFT in 2024 after offering the public an opportunity to hear it at a museum exhibition in Tasmania.
After hearing Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, Meth said, “I can see why some people will love it. For me, it had a few nostalgic moments on there. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. You can tell that [Cilvaringz] was emulating RZA’s sound as much as possible, to the point where it got a little mimicry, a little mimicky… A bit long sometimes, but that’s what producers do. They’re like, ‘Look what I did.’ All in all, I do not hate this album.”
He then praised his fellow bandmates: “‘Ringz got lucky with a lot of them darts, man, ’cause they are so good. My guys sounded really good. [Raekwon the] Chef could have stayed off the last joint, though. That’s not his pace.”
“Again, I can see why people will like this album, and I can see why people will love this album,” Meth continued. “Cilvaringz did his numbers with this one. The production is on par with some of the stuff RZA used to do back in the day, but again, he had the blueprint right there in front of him. Again, I don’t hate it.”
In the end, Meth said Cilvaringz “did an excellent job,” adding, “Contrary to what everyone thinks, I have nothing against this guy. I’m going to give him his props on this one. I’m going to validate this is a valid piece of art right here.”
Once again praising Cilvaringz, Meth said he believes the album is “in great hands” now that Shkreli is “out of the picture.” He then elaborated on why he took issue with how the project came together.
“Speaking from an art perspective, the time that it takes to create and the way that you envision shit, you want that to stay pure ’cause that’s about the only thing you can control. So, you don’t want someone to take that lightly and do whatever they want to do with it, even though record labels have been doing this shit to us for years. The payoff is that we can still get a room like this to listen to said art and be respected as artists. That’s the best part of it.”
Meth reiterated his belief that the album was made under “false pretenses” and explained that he would have made “more of an effort” if he had been given greater insight into the project. “I feel like I was robbed of that. So that’s why I have this chip on my shoulder,” he added, before clarifying he went into the listening session with an “unbiased opinion.”
Torre also asked Meth to comment on his up-and-down relationship with fellow Wu-Tang Clan members. “We’ve been through a lot, but I can say at the end of the day, we still treat each other with respect and we still call each other brothers,” the rapper responded.
When asked by Torre’s Meadowlark Media boss, Dan Le Batard, whether he wanted to hear the full album, Meth joked, “I’m not sitting through two hours of anything” before clarifying it would “have to be something done in private.”
See some of the Method Man lyrics shared in the podcast episode below:
When I was young, I used to play in the park
These little girls would eat our candy up and play with our hearts
Much too young to give the panties up
We play ’til it’s dark
Then we would listen for the gunshots
‘Cause some shots spraying these parts
It ain’t our fault, just the way we were told
Never tell on your team or take shorts when you’re selling to fiends
Catch a body, that’s a felony thing
And every dream starts with cream, that’s on everything
Wish I could talk to my brother
Hold up, I can’t talk to my brother, he gone
Our folks don’t understand that’s all the stuff that we gone
Say your peace to the God
Let your knowledge be born
Hey son, why do good die so young?
Feel the pain of the families of Freaky Tah and Pun
Same game, different day in the sun
Same G, different day in the P’s
I hate the same people hating on me
Is it my downfall they waiting to see?
Editor’s Note: See where Wu-Tang Clan landed on our list of the 100 Best Bands of All Time.