The 2025 Grammy Awards on Feb. 2 proved to be a night crammed with giving again to the Los Angeles neighborhood, and this was maybe made no clearer than through the moments in between the precise awards ceremony.
When host Trevor Noah took audiences to business break, viewers at residence had been proven ads from 4 native L.A. companies that had been affected by the devastating wildfires that set the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods ablaze for a lot of January. The Recording Academy allotted them free airtime in an effort to assist their companies rebuild. Every commercial additionally featured a cameo from a Grammy-nominated or -winning artist.
Sipoo Hearring and her Altadena-based martial arts studio, Two Dragons Martial Arts, was among the many companies featured through the telecast.
Trusted information and each day delights, proper in your inbox
See for your self — The Yodel is the go-to supply for each day information, leisure and feel-good tales.
Hearring, who was contacted by the Grammys, instructed Yahoo Leisure she had “no clue” how the group knew of her studio however felt “blessed” to be included. As soon as the business aired, the response inside her neighborhood and past was quick.
“Everyone is paying consideration. Clicking onto the web site, it’s great. I’m grateful and grateful about it. It was one thing you by no means would count on,” Hearring stated. “It’s sort of like out of this catastrophe and horrible factor, the individuals rise to the event and grow to be superb. The human spirit is superb.”
Within the phase, Hearring, a talented martial artist herself, takes down Grammy-nominated artist Charlie Puth, who interrupts her through the advert. Whereas she was instructed {that a} shock visitor can be becoming a member of her on digital camera, Hearring had no concept it might be Puth till she noticed him on location.
“It was a pleasure working with him. He’s a sweetheart,” she stated. “He made me look good. I didn’t have a clue. I understand how to do what I do, however I didn’t know learn how to get in entrance of a digital camera and do all of that, and he’s a pure. He made me calm down. He made it simple for me.”
Two Dragons Martial Arts is among the many companies in Altadena that misplaced their bodily location to the Eaton Fireplace, which is acknowledged because the second-most harmful wildfire in California historical past. Hearring first opened the studio in Pasadena 30 years in the past together with her husband, Steve. After he died, she moved to a location in Altadena. There she operated the enterprise for 17 years till the fireplace struck.
Two Dragons Martial Arts studio through the Eaton Fireplace. (Sipoo Hearring)
“It was one thing I hadn’t considered till my college students made me conscious that it was time to step up and converse, as a result of I’m not one to get in entrance of cameras and do lots of speaking. I simply do higher at doing the work,” Hearring stated of her resolution to grab the Grammys alternative. “When [my students] noticed the studio burning down, they had been crying and [were] simply as unhappy as I used to be. Even my little ones. The mother and father that misplaced their houses stated the youngsters didn’t cry as exhausting till they noticed the studio happening.”
Added Hearring, “I simply know that the constructing was a constructing, and the individuals, the spirits of all these individuals who got here by way of the studio during the last 30 years, they’re what make up who I’m.”
For the three different companies featured through the Grammys telecast — Paliskates, a neighborhood skateboarding store positioned within the Pacific Palisades; Orla Floral, a floral preparations studio based mostly in Altadena; and Rhythms of the Village, a West African attire store additionally in Altadena — the outpouring of help has been related.
Avril Lavigne made a cameo within the Paliskates phase with the store’s proprietor, Erica Simpson, to advocate for all of the “skater boys and skater ladies,” a nod to her 2002 Grammy-nominated observe, “Sk8er Boi.”
Doja Cat, a Los Angeles native, appeared alongside Renata Ortega, Orla Floral’s founder, to encourage audiences to assist the enterprise bloom once more. Ortega, who has since seen an inflow in orders for preparations, instructed Yahoo, “I’d have by no means been capable of revive this a lot publicity in any other case! I’m past grateful.”
Anderson .Paak, who hails from from Oxnard, Calif., performed the drums alongside Rhythms of the Village homeowners Emeka Chukwurah and, his father, Onochie Chukwurah, at a household gathering whereas sporting one of many retailer’s “Altadena” hoodies.
Although their bodily areas are gone, native companies, Hearring believes, are greater than that. They’re concerning the neighborhood and the individuals you meet alongside the best way.
“Most of my pupil physique was within the neighborhood. They had been neighborhood households, so that they’ve misplaced the whole lot together with us. We’re all on this scenario, however we’re in it collectively, and we elevate one another up,” she stated. “[The fire] made me know that I’m doing what I’m presupposed to be doing.”
