Here's the history of the project to clear some of these questions up:
The way the project built, these were all just random verses for "something," so people were paid for their verses the same they would be for a feature on someone else's album or a complilation. There were verses he had already recorded for his second album and, going into this, it was originally going to be a Cilvaringz helmed sequel to Killah Priest's Heavy Mental. He talked to Priest a little bit about doing this, he was trying to get 4th & True involved & started making & selecting beats w/ Priest in mind. Then KP didn't really want to do it anymore and Cilva started flipping what he'd already started into more of a 'Cilvaringz presents Wu-tang" type album; a producer's album w/ the crew over all his beats. He even was going to take a cut like Weeping Tiger from his solo, take his verse off and add a new Deck verse on it.
As he started building that project, it evolved into more of a Clan & fam album and started working w/ specific song concepts & asking people to do specific types of verses. There was an ODB cut w/ his Brooklyn Zu crew, there was a Gravediggaz track, there were verses built around a certain theme, etc... This all helped build hype around it because, as you know from recent output, Wu really hasn't been on the same page for projects and here you have someone putting this much effort behind shaping these individual songs & asking for specific performances.
Now when I say hype, that's pretty much centered on the Wu Corp board, because Cilva brought people on the board into the loop during this project. He'd ask for opinions, play snippets, and even would release a track line-up a week so people would know who's on the album. For those who haven't seen it, here it is:
[few years old so obviously some shyt could have changed in the meantimeinbetweentime]
Now, around the time he was finishing up this project and it was taking shape as the tracklist you see above, he was trying to think (and bring these thoughts to the board) what he could even do with it to release it and recoup the money he put in on buying all these MC's performances. If he drops it as a "Cilvaringz presents..." type album, people aren't really going to grab it b/c he's not that big a name and, as evidenced in this thread, he's not that well-known as a producer to attract business. If he drops it as Wu Tang & Fam album like "The Swarm," that's not going to hold the same weight as it used to since, at this point, a lot of the weaker extended fam diluted the brand & I think this may even be around when RZA dropped that weak "Pollen" compilation too to make that seem like a bad idea. I think he was toying with the idea of kind of a private sale kind of like what Nipsy Hustle did with his $100 mixtape, but was concerned with someone ripping it and then the market dries up and again he doesn't get the investment he put into this thing back. Reason I say that is he did this sort of "proof of concept" thing where he offered to people on the Corp board the opportunity to buy into a collection of rare & unreleased Wu & fam songs & instrumentals and saying that he just wanted to make back enough to cover what he paid to get this collection. People bought it but within a couple days one of those people leaked it & the tracks were everywhere and Cilva made a comment about it proving something.
I think that experiment is when Cilva started going heavy into this single copy idea. Now, I don't really have anything against Cilva in general and this is entirely his project to do with and sell however he pleases, but the backlash he's getting I understand and much of it he brought on himself. Here's the main issues:
1) The single copy reclaiming "music" as "art" concept, while it's a novel idea and I understand the intention behind it, I don't buy it for music. From drums at a campfire to symphony orchestras, from garage band gigging to playing stadiums, music is meant to be played for and enjoyed by an audience. You can compare it to a painting, but most paintings were traditionally commissioned by some rich fukk to hang in their residence and only hit museums after they died. Most art has been privately owned, coveted and hidden, but music has always been for the masses. That's why it's always lent itself to mass production and major business because people seek it out in volume. People want to hear and experience music in a much different fashion than they want to experience a painting or a sculpture. I know it's an attempt at something new and has got a ton of press because of it, and for that, again, I commend trying it because the music industry desperately needs new ideas, but I just can't go with the logic saying this is reclaiming music as art.
2) The new owner not being able to commercialize it is just weird. When I first heard about the concept, I thought it was going to be a brilliant way to redo a major label deal. Instead of the typical album advances which recoup all the money used to record, produce, get guests, manufacture, advertise & even beyond w/ 360 deals, here you have a single copy fully produced & completed album that's up to the highest bidder. So if someone buys it for a couple million, they get to try and capitalize on that and you get all the money from the sale and no worries about recouping or how little you're getting on the back end. You could have labels bidding on it, an indy label looking to make a big splash, execs who would bring it to the label, individual buyers who want to use this as an inroad into the music industry, etc... Instead, the buyer can't make an money off the album for a chunk of a decade. Cilvaringz came up with this model in order to get back his investment in this album, but he's not really allowing the purchaser to even view the item as an investment for himself at all. So instead of attracting a litany of investors looking to capitalize on this project you're only going to attract private collectors I'm guessing. I just don't get this at all.
3) A huge part of the backlash is bringing the fans into the process and them denying them the product. Again, he played people clips of songs, he shared line-ups, he talked all the time about how he was trying to make a "Wu-sounding album" because Wu themselves weren't making them anymore. He shared the process before he even knew what the final project was going to be for years until it ended up being "Once Upon A Time In Shaolin." And after having them involved in making it and showing them each step in the process, you break the news that none of them will probably ever hear it unless it hits a museum near them? You have to expect people coming back at you over that one. Like I said, this is Cilvaringz project to do with as he likes and it was cool that he involved people in the process as he made this album but to build up hype for years about this 'last great Wu album for the fans' and then have those fans you hyped it to told they're probably never hearing it, yeah, they're gonna blow up.
4) Billing this as a Wu-Tang Clan album is a mistake. I know that's how it has to be marketed to sell but that's not what this album is at all. That's why you're seeing backlash from the Clan members now because this is something they recorded thinking it was for some random Cilvaringz Wu project and now it's being billed in these interviews and press releases as "the final Wu-Tang Clan album" and "a companion piece to ABT," which is all bullshyt. It's a Cilvaringz produced Wu & fam album. If you're going to bill it as a Clan album, the Clan members should be getting the same checks they got for ABT soon as the sale comes through minus whatever they already got paid per verse to record. If it's now a group album, then the group needs to be 100% involved in the sale & profit off the project. And the marketing too. Why is Meth hearing from an XXL reporter the details of a "Wu-Tang Clan" album? He & the other remaining 7 are Wu-Tang Clan and he deserves to be pissed when someone takes their name in vein.
Anyways, hope that long ass post clears up questions people had &, again, no ill will to Cilvaringz. I think the intent is good in trying something new but the execution is flawed. Plus the album is probably dope & I wanna hear that shyt.
