MOLI VIEW™

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.

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