Lauryn Hill took to her Tumblr page to comment on recent media reports that she’d inked a new deal with Sony Music to help her avoid prison time for three years of missed tax returns.
She wrote that she will be launching a new label through Sony to release her new music, but called media reports on the nature of the deal and its dollar amount “inaccurate.”
Last year, Hill pleaded guilty for failing to pay federal taxes on $1.8 million earned between 2005 and 2007. On Monday, a federal judge postponed Hill’s tax evasion sentencing, giving her until May 6 to pay off her liability, which now stands at $504,000 after Hill made a payment of $50,000 late last year.
During Monday’s proceeding in Newark, N.J., however, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra Moser revealed that Hill had signed a new deal with Sony, and was set to receive $1 million for recording five new songs, plus additional money for an entire album, according to NJ.com.
However, Hill has yet to finish writing and recording the new songs. A representative for the singer declined to provide further details on the deal, and at press time Sony had not responded to Billboard.biz’s request for comment.
The ex-Fugee posted a 353-word missive on her Tumblr page, in which she admits much of the media ruckus on her complicated set of affairs is mostly accurate. Mostly, but not all of it.
“I’ve remained silent, after an extensive healing process. This has been a 10+ year battle, for a long time played out behind closed doors, but now in front of the public eye. This is an old conflict between art and commerce… free minds, and minds that are perhaps overly tethered to structure. This is about inequity, and the resulting disenfranchisement caused by it. I’ve been fighting for existential and economic freedom, which means the freedom to create and live without someone threatening, controlling, and/or manipulating the art and the artist, by tying the purse strings…
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