Café Tacvba wants its music off Spotify, citing ethical concerns
Mexican alternative band Café Tacvba is petitioning two of the largest music labels to take its catalog off of Spotify.
On Wednesday, the group’s singer Rubén Albarrán made an Instagram post calling on its former labels Universal Music Mexico and Warner Music Mexico to take action.
“I delivered letters to the record labels WMM and UMM, which by contract have the exploitation rights of Café Tacvba’s catalog, asking them to remove our music from the platform Stupidfy [sic] because it contradicts our artistic vision and our personal and band ethics,” Albarrán said.
He also claimed that the streaming giant invests in weapons manufacturing, runs ads for ICE and uses artificial intelligence in a way that is detrimental to musicians.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek leads an investment group that gave $694 million to the European defense technology startup Helsing in June.
“I personally invite our followers to listen to our music on other platforms, or better yet boycott it, and don’t take part in the abuses of power, ongoing wars, violence.” Albarrán added. “It is time to create a new world, more just — where music still has value, meaning, accompanies people, giving them support, joy, hope.”
Spotify responded to Albarrán’s post in a statement to The Times.
“We respect the artistic legacy of Café Tacvba and Rubén Albarrán’s right to express his views, but the facts tell a different story,” a Spotify spokesperson wrote. “Spotify does not fund war. Helsing is a separate company that has been supplying defense tech to Ukraine. Furthermore, there are currently no ICE ads running on Spotify; the advertisements mentioned were part of a U.S. government recruitment campaign that ran across all major media and platforms. We are a platform for music, and our AI policy is focused on protecting human artists from clones and fraud.”
In November, Rolling Stone reported that Spotify received $74,000 from the Department of Homeland Security to air ICE ads, according to information acquired from several data services.
According to Variety, the music streamer stopped airing ICE ads at the end of 2025. News of Spotify’s terminated contract came after Renee Nicole Good was killed by a federal immigration agent during an operation Wednesday in Minneapolis.
Spotify’s statement to The Times also claimed that the platform pays artists more equitably than other streamers, saying, “We are proud that Café Tacvba’s music has generated millions of dollars on Spotify over the years, and the reality is that Spotify continues to pay out more money to more artists than any player in music history. We consistently pay out 70% of our revenue to rightsholders.”
According to Spotify’s artist website, platformed artists must contact their label or distributor and ask them to issue a takedown request.
Universal Music Mexico and Warner Music Mexico did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.
Café Tacvba broke out onto the Latin rock scene with their second album,“Re,” a 20-song release from 1994. With smart, biting lyrics that touched on love, loss, hate, politics and modernism, the LP was hailed by the New York Times as “the equivalent of the Beatles’ White Album for the Rock en Español movement.” The L.A. Times’ critic Josh Kun dubbed it a “landmark.” And Rolling Stone put “Re” at the top of its “Top 10 Greatest Latin Rock Albums of All Time.”
The group saw even further international recognition with its 2003 megahit “Eres,” which received award recognition at the fifth annual Latin Grammys and has also accumulated over a half-billion streams on Spotify.
