DMX gets one year in prison for tax fraud

He couldn’t beat the rap — but at least he got to play some.

Hip-hop icon DMX blared one of his songs for a federal judge Wednesday — before being sentenced to a year in the slammer for evading $1.7 million in taxes.

The 47-year-old rapper, whose real name is Earl Simmons, teared up as his lawyers played his 1998 track “Slippin,’” which talks about his “drama with my Mama” and overall feelings of helplessness.

And the beats may have moved something inside Manhattan federal Judge Jed Rakoff, who rejected the government’s request for five years in federal lockup, calling Simmons “a good man” who is “his own worst enemy.”

But the judge also said the rapper’s fraud was a “brazen and blatant” crime that could not go unpunished, and ordered Simmons to pay $2.3 million in restitution.

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