Lauryn Hill signs new record deal with Sony, pays off tax debt (READ STATMENT)

Lauryn Hill performs at the Philly Fourth Of July Jam at Benjamin Franklin Parkway on July 4, 2012 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images)

Lauryn Hill says she has signed with Sony to pay her overdue taxes

Hill pleaded guilty last year to not paying federal taxes on $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007. The 37-year-old posted on her Tumblr blog late Thursday that she “signed a new record deal, and that I did this to pay taxes.”
The total Hill owes is in dispute, but it is around $1 million. Her next sentencing date in New Jersey is May 6.
Hill also says she’s working on new music. She hasn’t released much music since her 1998 solo debut, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” It has sold more than 10 million albums and won five Grammy Awards.
Hill writes that she’s not only signing with Sony because of her legal woes, but also because she needs to express her creativity.
Read the full text of Hill’s letter below.

It has been reported that I signed a new record deal, and that I did this to pay taxes. Yes, I have recently entered into an agreement with Sony Worldwide Entertainment, to launch a new label, on which my new music will be released. And yes, I am working on new music.
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.
It took years for me to get out of the ‘parasitic’ dynamic of my youth, and into a deal that better reflects my true contribution as an artist, and (purportedly) gives me the control necessary to create a paradigm suitable for my needs. I have been working towards this for a long time, not just because of my current legal situation, but because I am an artist, I love to create, and I need the proper platform to do so.
The nature of my new business venture, as well as the dollar amount reported, was inaccurate, only a portion of the overall deal. Keep in mind, my past recordings have sold over 50,000,000 units worldwide, earning the label a tremendous amount of money (a fraction of which actually came to me).
Only a completely complicated set of traps, manipulations, and inequitable business arrangements could put someone who has accomplished the things that I have, financially in need of anything. I am one artist who finds value in openly discussing the dynamics within this industry that force artists to compromise or distort themselves and what they do, rather than allowing them to make the music that people need. There are volumes that could (and will) be said.