Café Tacvba

Together since 1989 following their college encounter, Grammy recipients and Mexico City indie rock outfit Café Tacuba earn recognition as the leading group to arise from the early-’90s rock en español wave. The Mexican four-piece has stayed among the dominant forces on the Latin music landscape ever since, shaping two successive waves of rock acts. Their 1992 self-titled Warner debut generated six hit singles, and the 1994 follow-up Re—whose tracks continue to appear regularly in live sets—ranks at the summit of Rolling Stone’s 10 Greatest Latin Rock Albums of All Time. Café Tacuba’s theatrical stage presence and boundless inventive projects have turned them into a consistent sell-out draw across Mexico, Latin America, North America, and Europe alike.

In practice the “rock en español” label fits the Tacubas imperfectly; the phrase “rock music sung in Spanish” fails to capture the breadth of styles and inventive leaps the quartet has displayed throughout its catalog. The group employs the classic guitar-bass-drums-plus-vocals configuration yet also weaves in electronics and nonstandard instruments, traversing punk, ballads, norteña, cumbia, ranchera, mariachi, electronica, indie pop, and garage rock. Although their sonic signature remains identifiable, successive Café Tacuba albums diverge sharply because the band conceives each project around a unifying artistic concept that shapes track sequencing, stylistic fusions, guest choices, and even packaging design. Critics cite these traits when assessing the band’s stature, yet worldwide listeners embrace the music for its pioneering spirit and its playful, unpredictable character. While the first several albums revel in deliberately eccentric stylistic collisions, the 1999 double set Revés/Yo Soy marked a shift toward more challenging and experimental work on each subsequent release, accompanied by greater maturity and sincerity while preserving an often surreal humor.

The lineup comprises Rubén Albarrán (vocals, guitar; born Rubén Isaac Albarrán Ortega), Emmanuel del Real (keyboards, programming, acoustic guitar, piano, vocals; born Emmanuel del Real Díaz), Joselo Rangel (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals; born José Alfredo Rangel Arroyo), and Enrique Rangel (bass guitar, electric upright bass, vocals; born Enrique Rangel Arroyo). The four began as friends playing rock in a garage in Satélite, an upper-middle-class suburb within the Naucalpan municipality north of Mexico City. They first performed under the name Alicia Ya No Vive Aquí, borrowed from Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and drew chiefly from 1980s alternative acts such as the Cure, the Clash, the Smiths, and Violent Femmes. Wishing to honor their own cultural roots despite those English-language models, they adopted Mexican references and renamed themselves after the historic Café Tacuba restaurant on Calle Tacuba, several blocks west of the zócalo in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico. The word Tacuba is an alternate designation for Tlacopán (“florid plant on flat ground”), the pre-Columbian city-state on the western shore of Lake Texcoco. Once the band achieved recognition with its debut album, it altered the spelling to Café Tacvba to avoid any trademark conflict with the restaurant.

Café Tacuba moved from garage rehearsals to public performances in 1989 within the circle of El Hijo del Cuervo, the Coyoacán cultural venue founded in 1987 that has hosted many notable artists, Julieta Venegas among them. Additional early haunts included El 9, El Tutti Frutti, Rockotitlán, and El LUCC. During these Mexico City appearances the quartet attracted the attention of producer Gustavo Santaolalla, then working with leading rock en español acts such as Maldita Vecindad (Y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio, 1989) and Caifanes (El Diablito, 1990). Santaolalla secured a WEA Latina contract and planned to produce the debut himself. The band’s first commercially issued track, “Tamales de Iguanita,” appeared on the 1990 Christmas-themed rock en español compilation Diciembre 25.

Santaolalla and longtime associate Anibal Kerpel produced the self-titled 1992 album that positioned Café Tacuba among the most promising rock en español arrivals. Even so, the marketing category could not encompass the stylistic range of that debut, which blended punk, ska, electronica, hip-hop, and regional Mexican forms (norteño, bolero, ranchero) around Albarrán’s nasal vocals and the core guitar-bass-drums instrumentation. Lyrics likewise shifted unpredictably from track to track. Singles “Maria,” “Rarotonga,” “Las Persianas,” “La Chica Banda,” and “Las Batallas” emerged, each accompanied by a promotional video except the last.

The 1994 follow-up Re, again produced by Santaolalla, intensified the stylistic volatility of its predecessor with roughly two-thirds more songs, expanded instrumentation, and heightened whimsy (“El Borrego,” “La Ingrata”). Rather than folding multiple styles into individual tracks, Re moved from one discrete genre to another with each song, producing a deliberately jarring sequence. Reviewers frequently likened the album to the Beatles’ White Album. Re elevated the group’s profile further; hits “La Ingrata,” “Las Flores,” and “El Ciclón” drove commercial success while violinist Alejandra Flores and instruments such as the jarana, guitarrón, melodeon, and drum machines appeared. The band’s presence at the 1995 New Music Seminar in New York helped cultivate an American cult following. The 1996 mini-album Avalancha de Éxitos strengthened the Mexican audience with eight audacious covers of songs by Juan Jaime López, Axis, Flans, Bola de Nieve, Botellita de Jerez, Alberto Domínguez, Juan Luis Guerra, and Leo Dan, each reimagined in a new style. The set reached number 12 on Billboard’s Latin Pop chart and number 28 on Top Latin Albums, prompting an international tour.

Following the run of three acclaimed albums and extensive touring, Café Tacuba retreated to experiment in its own studio for roughly six months, exploring ambient electronica, musique concrète, and work with the Kronos Quartet. Santaolalla approved the results, yet WEA resisted issuing a purely instrumental experimental disc. The eventual compromise paired the experimental material with a second album of more conventional songs on a double-disc package priced as a single album. The conventional half, Yo Soy, reflected a matured perspective that tempered earlier zaniness with greater earnestness. Released in July 1999 as Revés/Yo Soy, the package earned a Latin Grammy for Best Rock Album; singles “La Locomotora” and “La Muerte Chiquita” broadened the audience despite lower sales than prior releases.

Four years passed before Cuatro Caminos (2003). In the interim the band contributed “Avientame” and “Dog:God” to the Amores Perros soundtrack (2000), “Insomnio” to Y Tu Mamá También (2002), and a cover of “Futurismo y Tradición” to El Mas Grande Homenaje a Los Tigres del Norte (2001). Del Real and Joselo Rangel produced Julieta Venegas tracks “Me Van a Matar” and “Disco Eterno,” while Rangel issued the Albarrán-produced solo album Oso (2003). After parting with WEA, which issued the 2001 compilations Tiempo Transcurrido: The Best of Café Tacuba, its video counterpart, and the triple-disc Lo Esencial de Café Tacuba, the band signed with MCA in 2002.

Before commencing Cuatro Caminos, Café Tacuba recorded the four-song Los Tres tribute EP Vale Callampa (2002). Los Tres vocalist Álvaro Henríquez joined the band at the 2002 MTV Latin America Video Music Awards alongside Erica García and Ely Guerra. For the new album the quartet enlisted live drummers Victor Indrizzo and Joey Waronker and producers Dave Friedman and Andrew Weiss alongside Santaolalla and Kerpel, yielding a stylistically cohesive record. Issued in June 2003, Cuatro Caminos drew comparisons to Radiohead’s Kid A, satisfied fans after a four-year wait, and earned a Grammy for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album plus Latin Grammys for Best Alternative Album and Best Rock Song (“Eres”).

Extensive touring followed, including a 170,000-person show at Mexico City’s El Palacio de los Deportes in October 2004 that supplied the double-CD/DVD Un Viaje (2005), documenting the 15-year anniversary set that revisited material from the 1992 debut onward. WEA simultaneously released the 1995 MTV Unplugged performance to mark its tenth anniversary. During subsequent downtime del Real produced, wrote, and played on albums by Ely Guerra (Sweet & Sour, Hot y Spicy, 2004), Natalia y la Forquetina (Casa, 2005), Liquits (Jardin, 2005), and Los Tres (Hagalo Usted Mismo, 2006). Café Tacuba resurfaced in 2007 with Sino and a main-stage Lollapalooza appearance, then reissued Yo Soy in 2009. After a five-year recording hiatus the band returned in 2012 with the chart-topping single “De Este Lado del Camino” and the album El Objeto Antes Llamado Disco, which reached the top ten on both the Latin Pop Albums and Top Latin Albums charts, received an Anglo Grammy nomination for Best Latin Album—Alternative or Urban, and earned Latin Grammy nominations for Best Alternative Album and Best Long-Form Music Video, ultimately winning the latter. Post-tour, Joselo Rangel published the short-story collection One Hit Wonder (reprinting his earlier Crocknicas Martians), Enrique “Quique” Rangel formed Presidente with Priscila Gonzalez of Quiero Club, and Emmanuel del Real “Meme” Diaz issued solo singles “No Puedo Parar” and “Todo Va a Estar Bien.”

Following a 2016 mountaintop festival concert, Café Tacvba reconvened with Santaolalla and mixing engineer Mick Guzauski at Ocean Studios in Burbank, California; Joey Waronker supplied live drums (concert drummer Luis Ledezma remains a non-member). The video single “Un Par de Lugares” preceded the group autobiography Bailando por Nuestra Cuenta, each member recounting his history in conversation with journalist Enrique Blanc. January 2017 brought the single and video “Futuro,” the psychedelic “Disolviéndonos” directed by Albarrán, and the power ballad “Que No,” followed by the full-length Jei Beibi and a U.S. tour highlighted by a Hollywood Bowl date. Café Tacuba also received a Latin Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.