In an effort to cement his public perception as the Cruella de Vil of hip-hop, Martin Shkreli has offered Kanye West $10 million for The Life of Pablo. The embattled pharma bro pitched via Twitter on Thursday, making his deal coincide with the Yeezy Season 3 event at Madison Square Garden. (See all the looks from the Yeezy Season Three show here.)â€Instead of releasing this product for your millions of fans, I ask you to sell [TLOP] solely to me,†Shkreli wrote in an initial letter. “I believe you (and your partners) will find this financial arrangement more attractive than your current course of action.†Well, well, well:
If it isn’t the businessman with a black belt in trolling:
Shkreli justified all this by claiming he’s a “tremendous fan†of Ye’s music — so much so that The College Dropout inspired him to succeed at a young age. Read his full note, which may or may not be another very early April Fool’s joke, below:
Shkreli is already the sole owner of Wu-Tang’s special Shaolin album, a possession that has led to beef with Ghostface Killah and other drama. Though Kanye might be looking for extra pocket change, Shkreli’s questionable ploy to expand his music library seems a little low — especially for a release that was once touted as “album of the life†and features at least one Ray J reference. At time of first publication, Yeezy had not yet responded to the offer, but was instead DJ Khaled’ing artwork for TLOP:
Update: As the night wore on, Kanye tweeted more Yeezy-related pics, Shkreli encountered some technical difficulties, and others grew restless.
This post has been updated throughout.