Always Aggressive, VIP Records Has Signage and Museum Plans

Major cities often have an identifying structure. New York has the Statue of Liberty. St. Louis has the Gateway Arch. Seattle has the Space Needle. San Francisco has Coit Tower. Los Angeles has the Watts Towers.

Long Beach has its own identifiers, the Walter Pyramid on the CSULB campus and the Queen Mary in the harbor. In Central Long Beach, for nearly five decades, the most recognizable structure wasn’t a tower, arch or needle, it was the VIP Records sign. Since going dark in 2015, the sign has sat in storage. That signage status is about to change in a big way.

On Jan. 6, 2026, the Long Beach City Council voted 8–0 to approve funding to restore the historic VIP Records sign. The plan: relocate it to a new public space, VIP Records Park at Pacific Coast Highway and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, currently a fenced-in vacant lot. Near the sign, there are plans for a gift shop on the property.

The agreement is a five-year pact, with an optional five-year renewal, not to exceed $170,000 paid to VIP Records for use of the sign. The city will contribute up to $235,000 for transport, refurbishment and installation, funded through Measure A dollars allocated via Elevate ’28. Long Beach will handle routine maintenance and maintain an annual repair reserve. VIP retains ownership of the sign and its intellectual property.

With the 2028 Olympics approaching, Long Beach needs symbols for the world to admire and VIP has been one of its best known. Thus the need for restoration. Reached in late February, VIP owner Kelvin Anderson said the contract was still under review by his attorney.

But the broader vision is for “a VIP museum where we would relocate the sign once it’s opened.” Museum artifacts would include “vintage 8-track players, reel-to-reel decks, marketing materials, industry plaques, the mechanics of distribution and a space explaining how independent Black retail shaped national sounds.”

The museum would depict much more than hip hop for which VIP is world-famous. “Based in our existence,” VIP owner Kelvin Anderson said. “Mahalia Jackson is as important as Snoop Dogg. We had soul, funk, reggae, all sorts of music in the store. We sold a lot of gospel,” Anderson said. “We had an ear for music. I could tell who I was going to sell it to them before they walked in the store.”

“You buy one thing, we could sell you three other things,” Anderson said. “We were very aggressive.” There was an in-house DJ, whose job it was to spot customer preference. Staff would ask customers what they’d last liked and guide them deeper.” For a time, VIP created a separate gospel room, eventually opening a full gospel store at Crenshaw and Jefferson. Different audiences required different spaces.

During the 47 years of VIP’s existence, record companies would consult with Anderson about which tracks to release. “Sometimes they’d release the wrong single from an LP. We could tell them what song to pick.” Like when the female act, SWV came through in the 1990s when sales lagged elsewhere. “We could sell it.”

Acknowledged as the first-ever rap record, “The Message” by the Sugarhill Gang was on an East Coast label owned by Sylvia Robinson. “The Robinsons send it to us, asked us to see if anybody could sell it. We were the first to sell a rap record on the West Coast before radio ever played it.

“After that, it opened up the market for east coast rappers.” In 1981, Kelvin’s late brother Cletus Anderson met an unknown Ice-T at a barbershop. “He must’ve been there rapping, getting his hair fried, Cletus recorded him and T’s first is now a sought-after collector’s item. “Anybody could sell it,” Anderson said. “We were first.”

After the major success of Snoop, “the 80s and 90s were the worst market to launch a label, radio won’t play indies, no social media,” Anderson said, “Artists couldn’t always travel freely between Compton, Inglewood and Long Beach in the 1980s.

“If I hear how the west was won, I remember a lot of time, black indie retail had to depend on the streets, music and talent could play it in the store. Across the U.S., a Cleveland store sent us a Bone Thugs-N-Harmony single, which ended in the hands of Eazy-E of NWA. He did their record from that connection.”

Now with social media replacing radio play, that’s all changed. “Vinyl is on the comeback,” he said. “Wholesale is through the roof. Vinyl outsells every other media.” Ironically, many of today’s vinyl buyers are not Black customers, but Asian and white collectors. “They buy albums, T-shirts.” But Anderson isn’t sure the trend will continue. “New vinyl is too expensive. I might sell two albums and they cost nearly $100.”

“We went through a whole period where music was free,” Anderson said. “You can’t make no money streaming.”

“My brother Cletus had the idea,” Anderson said. “Not to make a lot of money from a few people, but a little money from a lot of people.”