In 2020, Philip Lawrence needed money. Though the songwriter had forged a successful career collaborating with Bruno Mars, he had depleted his finances and was about to have his catalog seized. So, he hired Thomas St. John, an entertainment industry business manager, to get things in order.
St. John helped stave off seizure and negotiated the sale of Lawrence’s catalog for $90 million. But he also went into business with the songwriter on a Hollywood real estate project called CMNTY Culture Campus, originally pitched by Lawrence’s lawyers to defer and reduce capital gains taxes from the catalog sale.
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Now, CMNTY Culture is the subject of bombshell fraud claims filed against St. John by another one of his clients, the EDM superstar Calvin Harris — while St. John’s company has filed for bankruptcy. Billboard dove into court records to investigate how a group of music professionals ended up involved in a real estate venture and where the project and its various players stand now.
FROM CATALOG SALE TO REAL ESTATE
Lawrence was a member of the Smeezingtons, the songwriting and production trio behind Mars’ early discography. Composed of Lawrence, Mars and Ari Levine, the group also worked on hits like Cee Lo Green’s “F— You” and Adele’s “All I Ask.”
Though Lawrence ostensibly made good royalties from his work with the Smeezingtons, he didn’t manage his finances very well. Lawrence sunk money into the failed redevelopment of the famed recording studio the Record Plant and put his catalog up for collateral in order to take a $15 million loan from Hipgnosis.
That loan was coming up for maturity in 2020, and Lawrence didn’t have the funds to repay. Facing the possible seizure and auction of his catalog from Hipgnosis, Lawrence hired St. John to negotiate a more favorable catalog sale on his own terms.
The first thing St. John did was help Lawrence get a loan to pay off Hipgnosis. That loan came from an unlikely source: Tiësto, the Dutch DJ who was also a client of St. John’s. Tiësto (Tijs Verwest) lent Lawrence $25 million at an interest rate of 9.6%, according to a recent filing in bankruptcy court.
St. John then found a buyer for Lawrence’s catalog: Tempo Music Investments, which was established in 2019 and also owns the catalogs of artists like Wiz Khalifa and Florida Georgia Line. Tempo paid Lawrence $90 million in 2021, and it has since used its ownership of the Smeezingtons’ copyrights to sue Miley Cyrus for allegedly infringing the Mars hit “When I Was Your Man” on her Grammy-winning song “Flowers.”
But $90 million did not prove to be the financial cure-all that Lawrence might have hoped for. He owed significant back taxes and legal fees; plus, $27 million went to repay Tiësto with interest. Lawrence ultimately declared bankruptcy in 2023, apparently having spent what was left of the catalog proceeds on multiple homes, luxury clothing and new investments.
One such investment was CMNTY Culture. According to recent testimony from St. John in bankruptcy court, Lawrence’s lawyers advised him that he could lessen his capital gains taxes on the catalog sale if some of the proceeds were invested in a so-called qualified opportunity zone. Established as part of the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts, these tax incentives allow investors who develop real estate in economically distressed areas to defer and potentially reduce their IRS liabilities.
Lawrence’s attorneys found four parcels of land in Hollywood, and the songwriter dreamt up a 460,000 square-foot recording studio and office space complex at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue. Lawrence wanted a partner in the venture — and he chose his business manager, St. John.
CALVIN HARRIS ENTERS THE PICTURE
Lawrence began buying up these parcels and invested $3 million in Dun & Dun LLC, one of various business entities established for CMNTY Culture. St. John testified during a recent bankruptcy hearing that it “felt like a good time to diversify” his own portfolio and invested $2.4 million himself, making Lawrence and St. John 60% and 40% owners of Dun & Dun, respectively.
But as time went on, St. John became the sole chief of CMNTY Culture. Lawrence’s finances were going south throughout 2021 — in part due to a messy divorce — and he wasn’t able to meet his initial promise to invest $20 million in the development. So St. John bought Lawrence out of Dun & Dun for the original $3 million Lawrence had invested and went on to spearhead the project himself, ultimately putting $70 million into CMNTY Culture via his own money, debt financing and other investors.
It’s through the addition of outside investors that Harris came to be involved in CMNTY Culture. St. John says the DJ (Adam Wiles) was one of nine investors who knowingly opted to sign contribution agreements and become involved in the project.
But Harris tells a different story. In an arbitration demand filed this past summer, the EDM superstar claimed that St. John — his longtime business manager — took advantage of access to his accounts to funnel more than $22 million into CMNTY Culture without his consent.
According to Harris’ arbitration filing, St. John became short on cash for the project in 2023 and fooled him into signing investment documents without fully explaining their meaning. Through these documents, Harris loaned $10 million to Hollywood LLC, another one of CMNTY Culture’s business entities, and took on a $12.5 million equity investment.
Harris says St. John never repaid the $10 million loan, and that he hasn’t seen any returns on his equity investment. The DJ claims St. John has pocketed much of the money himself rather than make meaningful strides on CMNTY Culture, describing the project as a “complete boondoggle.”
WHERE CMNTY CULTURE STANDS NOW
Is CMNTY Culture really a “boondoggle,” as Harris claims? It is true that more than four years into the project’s development, construction has yet to begin. CMNTY Culture has also defaulted on at least one loan, according to a notice obtained by Billboard, and St. John is still in the process of applying for permits and entitlements from Los Angeles’ city planning department.
St. John is working with reputable partners on the endeavor: real estate developer Lincoln Property Company and architectural firm HKS. But this team is no longer developing the project as it was originally billed: “Hollywood’s most sought-after community for creators in music, new media, gaming and entertainment tech.”
Instead, CMNTY Culture has shifted its plans away from a recording studio and towards a residential housing project with 746 apartment units. St. John testified in a bankruptcy hearing that they made this switch because the “creative office market imploded.” His reps have put it a bit more softly, blaming delays on “macroeconomic conditions” and insisting that the project is on track to achieve a $1 billion valuation once completed and bring much-needed housing to Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, St. John’s own financial position is precarious. The U.S. arm of his international business management firm, Thomas St. John Group, filed for bankruptcy this past March due to multiple ongoing legal disputes. Creditors list $466,000 in unpaid office rent in L.A., though St. John’s reps maintain that this number is overinflated.
St. John faces potential liability in Harris’ arbitration, which seeks financial damages for alleged investment fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. St. John’s reps have denied all of the claims brought by Harris, calling the case “malicious.” They say St. John never engaged in any self-dealing and that far from being duped, Harris actually requested at one point to increase his investment in CMNTY Culture.
St. John’s original partnership with Lawrence is also coming under legal scrutiny. The U.S. trustee overseeing Lawrence’s bankruptcy case, who is trying to bar St. John from collecting management fees from Lawrence, said in a recent court filing that St. John breached his fiduciary duties during the CMNTY Culture development, including by only paying Lawrence $3 million in the buyout even though this stake had grown in value and was “worth significantly more” by the end of 2021.
According to the trustee, St. John is at least partially to blame for Lawrence’s current financial mess. The court filing accuses St. John of engaging in multiple “acts of self-dealing” when he was Lawrence’s business manager — including, the trustee alleges, brokering the Tiësto loan without a license and improperly jacking up his own cut of the Tempo catalog sale by more than $1 million.
St. John’s reps deny that there was any wrongdoing in his relationship with Lawrence. They say St. John’s share buyback was for a fair value, the Tiësto loan was negotiated at arms-length by lawyers without any brokering by St. John and that St. John never overbilled Lawrence.
Amidst all of this, St. John has also gone on the legal offense by filing his own arbitration against Harris’ music manager and longtime ally, Mark Gillespie. St. John claims Gillespie has mismanaged his company, Three Six Zero, in which St. John holds a 5% interest, causing his shares to decrease in value from $5 million to just $1 million.
Three Six Zero’s lawyer, David Willingham, says in a statement to Billboard that St. John’s claims before the arbitration tribunal JAMS are “false and malicious.”
“[St. John] faces fraud allegations, his firm is bankrupt, his lawyer quit for non-payment, and he hasn’t paid the JAMS fees — preventing us from proceeding against him,” says Willingham. “If it does proceed, we expect to defeat his claims and prevail in our claims against him.”
Spokespeople for St. John and Harris declined to comment for this story. Reps for Lawrence and Tiësto did not return requests for comment.
