NEW YORK (AP) – Fresh from a 2-month stint in jail, DMX said Friday that he’ll release a new album, “Here We Go Again,” this summer.

The rapper, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was released Dec. 30 from Rikers Island, where he served a 70-day sentence after pleading guilty to violating his parole following a 2004 incident in which he posed as an undercover federal agent and crashed his SUV through an airport security gate.

Simmons has now signed a three-album deal with Sony Urban Music/Columbia Records after dropping longtime label Def Jam.

“2006 is a new beginning for me, starting fresh with a new label and a new sound,” he said in a statement. “I don’t make music to make songs, I make music to record my life.”

Simmons, 34, the husky-voiced emcee behind the 1999 hit single “Party Up (Up In Here),” has sold millions of records. His last album was “Grand Champ” in 2003.