DMX Gets Lenient Sentence After Playing Track in Court

The rapper DMX was permitted to play one of his tracks in court in an effort to show the judge his true character ahead of sentencing. He received a relatively lenient one-year jail sentence for $1.6m-worth of tax evasion after the judge said he believed he was “a good man.” Before being sentenced, the lawyer for DMX, who was tried under he real name, Earl Simmons, played part of his 1998 song “Slippin’”, which described a difficult upbringing which, his lawyers argued, left Simmons unprepared to deal with the responsibility that came with financial success. “They put me in a situation forcing me to be a man/ When I was just learning to stand without a helping hand,” Simmons raps in the song. DMX avoided millions in taxes between 2000 to 2005 on earnings from hit songs including “X Gon’ Give it to Ya” and “Where the Hood At,” by living a cash lifestyle and shuffling money between accounts.