On October 4th, Lauryn Hill was released from the minimum security Federal Correction Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. According to her attorney, she was released a few days early partly for ‘good behavior’, and now she will be confined to her home for three months as part of her one-year probation period.

On the even of her release, she releases Consumerism. She wanted to release this track while she was in prison, as it was the product of her ‘then’ environment she was in while facing so many tough challenges she was involved in recently. Lyrics are provided below.

“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. I haven’t been able to watch the news too much recently, so I’m not hip on everything going on. But inspiration of this sort is a kind of news in and of itself, and often times contains an urgency that precedes what happens. I couldn’t imagine it not being relevant. Messages like these I imagine find their audience, or their audience finds them, like water seeking it’s level.”