Ballad of Scott Storch

(Originally published on MOLI 7/28/8)

Two years ago, Scott Storch played me two tracks he was working on at the Hit Factory Criteria studio in Miami, where, true to the venue’s name, the wunderkind producer had set up shop and was churning out blockbuster after blockbuster: “Lean Back,” “Baby Boy,” “Candy Shop,” “Run It.” The first track, featuring singer Mya, showed off Storch’s complicated pop genius: It was sinuous and sexy and soulful, driven by the sort of hypnotic, overamped Middle Eastern filigree that was becoming Storch’s trademark.

The second song was by Brooke Hogan, the emergent reality TV bimbo who Storch had signed as the first artist of his Storch Music label. Loud, propulsive, and instantly forgettable, this song showed off Storch’s mega ambition. The former protégé of Dr. Dre clearly hoped to do for this blond wrestler’s daughter what his work on Christina Aguilera’s Stripped album had helped do for that white girl: Give her both hip-hop cred and chart gold.

Back then, as I was profiling Storch for a Miami Herald article, the Miami Beach multimillionaire was flying high and flashing ice. What neither of us knew at the time was that the tsunami of hits he had been riding for two years had peaked: Scott hasn’t had a top 10 hit since then, not with that killer Mya hook, not with Hogan’s pop pandering. He has recently found himself in a heap of trouble, getting dragged into family court for two custody cases and falling two years behind in his property taxes.

The story of Storch’s Icarus fall from the pop stratosphere is compelling enough that two major news outlets recently asked me to write about it; the article I reported for AP came out last Friday. Scott wasn’t talking this time. In fact, he seems to be in semi-hiding, not showing for court dates, no longer at Hit Factory, not talking to his two sons – though I did get a couple of reports of him recently sighted at South Beach clubs. He can leave a waitress a $20 tip, apparently, but can’t pay child support.

I found Storch both repellent and endearing when I met him in ‘06. The fame game has definitely gone to his head, bigtime. But behind the aviator sunglasses and pop-tart arm candy is this geeky music-head, a talented keyboardist who was an early force in the Roots. “He always knew what he wanted to be,” Vanessa Bellido, mother of Storch’s 15-year-old son Steven, told me for the AP story. “He would play the piano unbelievably. He was determined at 15. He was like, I’m going to make it, I’m going to make it.”

I’ve watched many talented artists struggle their whole lives for recognition and survival. But when I’ve come in contact with those, like Storch, or Kurt Cobain, who seem to have won it all, I’m not sure which group is the winners, and which the losers.

This entry was posted on September 11, 2008 at 10:29 am and is filed under Populism, Recommended reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.