Self-produced tragedy

MIAMI — Just a few years ago, Scott Storch was one of the top producers in pop music, living in a $10.5 million mansion on an exclusive Miami island, driving a phalanx of luxury cars and dating the likes of Paris Hilton and Lil’ Kim.

Nowadays, Mr. Storch, 34, is missing in action. He owes more than $500,000 in real estate taxes and a warrant out for his arrest was issued last month when he failed to show up in court in a child-support case. He has not had a top 10 hit in three years. He still has his waterfront marble mansion, but his lawyer, Guy Spiegelman, says Mr. Storch is attempting to refinance it after a “catastrophic occurrence this year” resulting from “mismanagement.”

Mr. Storch no longer works with his old manager or publicist. He hasn’t talked to either of his children in months.

Replete with tragic details and bad behavior, the ballad of Scott Storch may be the swan song of the bling era, a riches-to-rags tale of excess, poor decisions and a hobbled music industry.

Raised in South Florida and the Philadelphia area, Mr. Storch is a high school dropout from a broken middle-class family who turned serious music chops and intense ambition into a high-flying career. Vanessa Bellido met him when they were in high school and he was a talented keyboardist.

“He always knew what he wanted to be,” she says. “He would play the piano unbelievably. He was like, ‘I’m going to make it; I’m going to make it.’ Even at 15, he was an old soul. ”

Founder of the Roots

While still a teen, Mr. Storch was a founding member of the Roots. He produced the group’s breakthrough single, “You Got Me,” which helped Philadelphia’s hip-hop band win a Grammy and gave the sandy-haired producer serious hip-hop credentials. Deciding he preferred studios to touring, Mr. Storch moved to Los Angeles to work with Dr. Dre. There his keyboard loops helped form the basis of such hits as “Still D.R.E.” He produced seven tracks on Christina Aguilera’s “Stripped” album, including “Can’t Hold Us Down,” which featured Lil’ Kim.

Mr. Storch decided to return to his Florida roots to, as he has said, build his empire. Beginning in 2003, the hits rolled in: Beyonce’s “Naughty Girl,” Terror Squad’s “Lean Back,” 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” and Chris Brown’s “Run It.”

Mr. Storch had the quintessential producer’s talent for coaxing career-making performances from veteran and new artists.

“When we created that ‘Baby Boy’ record, Sean had only worked with Jamaican producers,” says Atlantic Records chairman and CEO Craig Kallman, referring to the 2003 single by Sean Paul and Beyonce that Mr. Storch produced and that helped make Mr. Paul an American recording star. “Scott was able to adapt himself to the sound of Jamaica but also to contemporary R&B and hip-hop. He was able to straddle both lines.”

THE STORCH SOUND

Yet there are similarities in many of Mr. Storch’s records: sinuous keyboard riffs that reveal Mr. Storch’s interest in Middle Eastern melodies coupled with thumping, staccato beats. In 2004, everyone wanted the Storch sound, and he reportedly commanded $100,000 per beat. An extensive Rolling Stone profile, referring to his jewelry, called him “hip-hop’s Liberace” and said he had earned $70 million.

Fame brought added responsibilities: In 2004, Mr. Storch reunited with the child he had fathered 12 years earlier with Miss Bellido and moved her and his son, Steven, to South Florida. Miss Bellido calls it “one of the happiest times in our lives.”

Three years later, the producer began paying for another son, Jalen Daniel, now 2. Miss Bellido and Jason Setchen, the lawyer for Jalen’s mother, Dalene Jennifer Daniel, say Mr. Storch was inconsistent but not a deadbeat dad.

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