Lauryn Hill may have managed to scrap up enough change to settle her $1 million debt with Uncle Sam, but the government still wants her to atone for her sins.
A judge sentenced the singer to three months in federal prison for tax evasion. After that Ms. Hill will spend an additional three months on house arrest followed by nine more months of supervised release. Now, before you dare feel sorry for her, somewhere Wesley Snipes is wishing he could rap and hum on key, seeing as he spent three years in prison for the same crime.
Then there’s Ron Isley aka Mr. Biggs, who was sentenced to 37 months in prison for not paying taxes – and we all know his catalog is far more extensive and he’s at least 205 years old. And before you bring up Lindsay Lohan getting away with her crimes, need I remind you that when the IRS came for her neck, she made sure that bill got paid. (Shout out to Charlie Sheen for that hook-up!)
To make matters worse, L-Boogie said to the judge at the hearing: “I was put into a system I didn’t know the nature of. … I’m a child of former slaves. I got into an economic paradigm and had that imposed on me.”
She added, “I sold 50 million units … now I’m up here paying a tax debt. If that’s not likened to slavery, I don’t know what is.”
So Lauryn Hill gets famous and makes millions off of her art, refuses to pay taxes on it and ends up with a lighter sentence than other people in a similar situation, yet somehow she feels this is comparable to slavery. Somewhere Harriet Tubman is preparing to haunt this woman in her dreams. Or maybe she’ll throw Kunta Kinte’s lost foot at her head.
As for the new album Lauryn will have to release to help pay off the IRS and crawl her way out of a financial hellhole, watch her sound like a prisoner of war.
