Some artists lost their life’s work in LA wildfires. Fellow artists are helping them recover

By Leslie Ambriz

Anthony Obi never imagined the night of Jan. 7 would be the last time he’d step inside his safe haven.

The Houston rapper, known professionally as Fat Tony, has lived in the Altadena neighborhood for a year and says he and his neighbors were prepared for heavy winds and perhaps a few days of power outages.

“I totally expected, you know, maybe my windows are going to get damaged, and I’ll come back in like a day or two and just clean it up,” said the rapper.

But residents like Obi woke up the following morning to news that thousands of homes and entire neighborhoods had been burned to ash, destroyed by flames that wiped out large areas of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Although the neighborhoods are on opposite ends of the county, they are known hubs for many of the city’s creative community, housing filmmakers, actors, musicians and artists of various mediums.