Imagine sitting in the bleachers after scoring a ticket to watch one of America’s hottest high school basketball teams: a Sierra Canyon home game. You’d be in good company.
Entertainment’s biggest celebrities, even an NFL starting quarterback, sit courtside to get a glimpse of the action. However, like the NBA, the entertainment doesn’t stop during timeouts.
The Trailblazers have a dynamic cheerleading squad, coached by veteran celebrity choreographer and author Reyna Banks, who run across the baseline during every brief intermission to perform a synchronized dance routine featuring some of hip-hop’s late 2010s-essentials like Drake‘s “Nice For What” or Missy Elliott‘s “WTF (Where They From)”. In the back row are a pair of freshman Black twins who always perform next to each other — D’Lila and Jessie Combs.
Just like everything else at Sierra Canyon, this isn’t the typical pair of twin sisters on a high school cheer squad — they are the daughters of hip-hop mogul Diddy and the late supermodel Kim Porter. After games, younger girls rush up to them with wide eyes, looking up to the well-mannered 15-year-olds, as the spectators’ mothers politely ask if their daughters can get a picture with them.
“Sure,” the sisters respond simultaneously.
The twins smile together and complete each other’s sentences often.
“Honestly, the people here are very nice,” D’Lila told rolling out. “The experience is really fun [at Sierra Canyon], too.”
This is the first year the Combs twins, who have over 470,000 Instagram followers, have been cheerleaders.
“We had no experience before,” Jessie said. “I just wanted to try it because it was fun. Before this year, when I was in middle school here at Sierra, I saw the other cheerleaders cheering and it looked so much fun, I wanted to try it.”
“We have so much fun doing it,” D’Lila added, as Jessie agreed with her. “It’s literally so much fun.”
