Lauryn Hill was released from prison today. Back in July, she was sentenced to three months for failing to pay taxes on more than $2.3 million in earnings.
“Ms. Hill was released today from federal prison after serving her sentence,” her lawyer Nathan Hochman said in an email. (Sidebar: Remember when she insisted that everyone refer to her as Ms. Hill? That’s when I knew things were headed south and staying there. I digressed … )
“She was released several days early based on a number of factors the Bureau of Prisons takes into consideration, including good behavior. She will now start today a one-year period of probation with three months of home confinement during that year.”
Letting the world know she’s back, Lauryn released a new song – “Consumerism.”
It’s part of a collection of work she’s calling “Letters to Exile.”
“’Consumerism’ is part of some material I was trying to finish before I had to come in. We did our best to eek out a mix via verbal and emailed direction, thanks to the crew of surrogate ears on the other side. ‘Letters From Exile’ is material written from a certain space, in a certain place. I felt the need to discuss the underlying socio-political, cultural paradigm as I saw it,” she wrote in a message that accompanied the single on her Tumblr page.
SMH. Lauryn Hill is super talented but I feel a sense of huge disappointment when I think of her. In my opinion, she let men (e.g. the affair with Wyclef) and the industry run her completely down. The affair with Wyclef seemed to put a crack in her soul and eventually The Fugees. The final nail in the coffin was the 50-something page lawsuit from New Ark, a team of musicians, that claim to have not been credited for the work that was done on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill which won her 5 Grammys. They settled the suit for about $5 million but she spent so much energy on trying to clear her name when really her fans didn’t even care about it. I’m not even going to get on the silly rants about the music industry being similar to slavery or the demands to call her Ms. Hill. There used to be a time when I was checking for Lauryn, hoping she would drop new music. Those days are over.
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