Earl Simmons better known as DMX has admitted guilt before a federal judge in New York and agreed to pay back taxes, prosecutors declared.
The rapper will be sentenced on March 29 and faces up to five years in prison.
DMX could have have been hit with up to 40 years in prison if he had been tried and convicted on all counts.
“No matter who you are or whatever fame you may have achieved, the law applies equally to all, and no one is exempt from the shared obligation to pay our taxes,” Joon Kim, the acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, said in a statement.
With his deep voice and often violent lyrics, DMX became a major star in hip-hop in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
He has faced frequent legal problems on charges that include animal unkindness, drug possession and failure to pay child support.
His 2000 song “Party Up (Up in Here),” in which DMX demeans other rappers and which is accompanied by a video that dramatizes a bank robbery, has become his most identifiable work and frequently appears in movies, most recently the remake of “Ghostbusters.”
Prosecutors said DMX failed to pay $1.7 million in tax liabilities between 2002 and 2005.
They assumed that he earned another $2.3 million between 2010 and 2015 but again did not pay taxes, and even threatened to leave his position on the celebrity reality television series “Couples Therapy” when the payroll department deducted taxes from his checks.