VIP Records Owner Kelvin Anderson Set to Close Up Shop

For the first time in decades, visitors to the strip mall at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Martin Luther King Boulevard won’t experience the music and incense wafting out the door of the internationally famous music store VIP Records. VIP owner Kelvin Anderson has determined that his days as a record shop owner are done.

10 Underground Long Beach Rappers You Need to Know Now

Today, Long Beach’s hip-hop potential is more rich and thriving than ever. Here are 10 Long Beach rappers who are currently out there promoting themselves and their new songs. Get to know them now before another mainstream invasion puts the most slept on city in music on the hip-hop map yet again.

Back to the Roots: Soul Anchor Collective Uses Blog, Label to Support Socially Conscious Emcees

For years, lyricist and emcee Nate “KnewBalance” Whitsell attended live hip hop shows in San Diego, picking up demos from local artists and connecting with other conscious music heads along the way. An English teacher by trade, Whitsell was always compelled to write about the mainstream-forgotten genre in which he was so entrenched, but it wasn’t until a local performance of acclaimed rapper AHMAD that Whitsell knew he had to share what he was listening to with the world.