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Artist News Releases
Wu-Tang to release album on portable speaker
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 2 October 2014
Those Wu-Tang Clansmen are back with another one of their hair-brained money-making schemes. They are truly are the Gonch Gardner of hip hop.
Previously, as you may remember, they announced plans to press up a single copy of their first album since 2007, ‘The Wu – Once Upon A Time In Shaolin…’ with plans to tour it around art galleries and then flog it to the highest bidder. A group of fans attempted to raise money to get hold of it via Kickstarter. Sadly, they failed to reach their target of $5 million – managing just $15,406 from 688 backers. Ah well, it saves all the arguments over how to share ownership of it, anyway.
But, you may remember, ‘The Wu’ wasn’t really the official new album from The WTC anyway. That honour fell on the long-in-production and for a time delayed due to rapper strike ‘A Better Tomorrow’.
That album was to have a ‘more traditional’ release. And it will, in good time. But before its released through the usual channels, it’ll be made available hard-coded into a portable Bluetooth speaker. Made by Boombotix, the £50 device will also come with an exclusive bonus track, bringing the number of tracks on the record up to a cool eight.
Well, if you count the two instrumental versions of other songs on the album as proper tracks. If not, you’ll have to make do with six. Basically what I’m saying is that this ‘album’ only really has five proper songs on it.
But anyway, what’s the big idea, RZA? Well, he says: “To me, there’s something transcendent about being able to physically hold music. With this project, I hope to strengthen the bond between fan and artist. Boombotix puts the artist back in your hands so you can stay connected to your music”.
Yeah, OK. But it’s still inside a portable speaker. And the beauty of portable speakers is that you can hold them in your hand, regardless of whether the music they’re playing was pre-loaded onto them or not. So that’s where this whole idea basically falls down. But, hey, people will buy them at 50 quid a pop, so who cares if it makes sense or not, right?
Pre-order yours here.
