During the teaser for his latest interview with Bloomberg TV, Wu-Tang Clan guru RZA showed zero signs of ill will for the indicted drug executive Martin Shkreli, who purchased the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for a reported $2 million through online auction house Paddle8 last year.
“He bought it, he can do what he wants,” a spectacled RZA told With All Due Respect show host John Heilemann. “Art — the beautiful thing about art, from my standpoint, is that it has no discrimination.”
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While Shkreli — the 32-year-old (once described by BBC as the “most hated man in America”) arrested on securities fraud charges last month — hasn’t been shy about airing out his grievances with RZA (“I think he’s a smart man. He definitely acts like his shit doesn’t stink and he invented rap,” Shkreli said about the rapper an interview with HipHopDX last month), RZA didn’t let the “hostile” comments jade his sense of accomplishment.
“What we’ve done is historical, and you can’t remove that,” he says.
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In the snippet, RZA also recalls his initial lunch meeting with Shkreli (“I didn’t get a chance to read him. We talked briefly about where he comes from, briefly about what Wu-Tang means”) and the truth about that false but hilarious Bill Murray contract clause.
Preview the interview here before it airs in full on With All Due Respect on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday (Jan. 6) at 5 p.m. ET.