Lauryn Hill's Website

[Shawn]

Official site

Lauryn Hill has taken to her official Web site to sell art prints, autographed posters and a poem titled "The Middle Man." For $15, visitors can purchase a video clip of Hill performing a new song titled "Social Drugs" on guitar.

Some of the autographed items are selling for $500, while "The Middle Man" is being sold for $75. An excerpt of the poem on the site reads, "If everyone is a product of this society, who will say the things that need to be said, and do the things that need to be done, without compromise? Truth will never start out popular in a world more concerned with marketability than righteousness. It will initially suffer ridicule and even violence -- yet ultimately it is undeniable. All of humanity is living in a dream world but suffering real consequences."

write-up from Billboard

[Shawn]

From Undercover.com

The miscalculation of Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill has put together an interesting new revenue model, offering a song at her website for download for $US15.

Fans are being asked for the money before they download a video of the new song 'Social Drugs' but even after you own it you can only watch it three times before the digital rights managed song times out.

Laurynhill.com is also selling autographed posters for $500, art prints for $50, and her book The Middle Man for $75.

There is no explanation of why the prices are so high for the Hill merchandise and if the prices have been costed to raise money for charity. No charity is mentioned at the site.

It is thought that maybe Ms Hill is trying to raise money for victims of Catholic Church but even that is not clear. In mid December 2003, he was back in the news when she publicly attacked the Church during at concert at the Vatican. She launched into a tirade stating "I realize some of you may be offended by what I'm saying but what do you say to the families who were betrayed by the people in whom they believed. And what do you say to those children who were violated in body and mind?"

The concert was held at the Vatican in the Pope Paul IV auditorium in the presence of many of the Church's elder statesmen including Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Pope's vicar for Rome.

Lauryn Hill has kept a low profile since releasing her solo album 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill' in 1998. It sold more than 6 million copies in America alone. A second album, 'MTV Unplugged' in 2002 featuring all new songs, sold nowhere near platinum.