LIL KIM BANNED FROM RELEASING MUSIC?

Have you ever wondered why it took so long for Lil Kim to release some new music? For those not keeping track,

*Lil Kim dropped a new single last month and her latest song, "Keys to the City," -featuring Young Jeezy, hit the web this weekend. But before then, new tunes from the Queen Bee were hard to come by.

Well, there's a good reason for all that. Kim told the folks at MTV's Sucker Free program that she was legally banned from releasing new music.

You see, she tried leaving her label (Atlantic) when she got out of prison in 2006, but it turned out that it wasn't so easy for her. She had to pay her way out of the contract and, eventually, she got a deal with Track Masters.

That deal fell through, too, and she's really paying for it. Apparently Track Masters paid the $200,000 to get her out her Atlantic contract. On top of that, they spent $240,000 producing eight songs for her unfinished album and they covered her rent ($12,000/month) for some time.

So now, they're suing her for $2.5 million and preventing her from releasing new music. Here's what she told MTV:

"Contractually, by the courts, I could not record any music. I wasn’t supposed to put any music out. Technically, [2011's] Black Friday was a mixtape, so I was able to get away with that. But technically, they could have come after me if I were to put out an album. I couldn’t do it. So, this is something that my fans don’t know, but now you know."

But what about the new music she's dropped since then? Who knows, because Kim hasn't said whether the case was settled or not. Chances are it was, or else she's going to owe a LOT more money.

Lil Kim Banned From Releasing New Music?