Rubén Albarrán

Rubén Isaac Albarrán Ortega (born February 1, 1967 ) is a Mexican musician, singer, song writer, music producer, and activist.

He is a member and founder of the alternative rock band Café Tacvba.

As singer and frontman of Café Tacvba, the artist has characterized himself by his energetic attitude onstage and for presenting himself as different characters and aliases throughout his career.

Albarrán was born in the State of Mexico in 1967.

He has three siblings.

He spent the first five years of his life in Monterrey then returned to live in the Ciudad Satélite area, in a metropolitan area of the Mexican capital.

He grew up with the eclectic influence of the music his parents listened to, who liked to sing often.

"My parents sang daily (...) they sang everything that they listened to (...) they were always very musical, they liked what reached them, they accepted it and they sang it. Everything comes to me from there. (...) The first memory of when I said 'I want to sing' comes from more or less four years. We were all in the car and they put on the radio the song that goes 'Let the sunshine, let the sunshine, the sunshine in'. And then I said I want to sing"

He had music as a hobby from secondary school, participating in school bands.

Initially he wanted to play the electric guitar, but his parents insisted in buying him an acoustic, school teaching instrument which Albarrán studied, for which he broke it at the end of the course.

His first guitar was a Sonatone, although afterwards he chose to be a vocalist.

He started in music in the 1980s in the suburbs of Mexico City, forming Cafe Tacvba together with Joselo Rangel between 1988 and 1989, a group with which he gained international fame and made him worthy of the prizes Grammy and Grammy Latino.

As a soloist he has released an album, Bienvenido al sueño and he formed the group Hoppo!, in addition to making duets and covers with diverse artists from Mexico and Latin America.

He is an environmental activist and has shown his support for various political causes like the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Yo Soy 132 movement, among others.

In high school he already settled in to diverse musical groups that played at private parties like in bars in Ciudad Satélite in the mid-1980s.

The first of them had names like Trial and Flanger, and the second was called Torah, a band playing their own compositions and covers of bands like The Police and artists like Charly García.

Albarrán joined as a singer and he stood out for his talent in reaching high notes in songs by Led Zeppelin and Sting.

Torah appeared as a band based in bars in the commercial area of Ciudad Satélite like Satelite Rocks, Spequio's and High Tower, in which bands with the record label Comrock played, including Ritmo Peligroso, Casino Shanghai and Mask, among others.

He met Joselo Rangel at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Azcapotzalco campus, shortly after the earthquake of 1985 when both were studying design (Joselo, industrial design; Rubén, graphic design), since Joselo had seen Rubén sing with Torah in the bar Rocks de Ciudad Satélite and Albarrán recognized Joselo as part of Shine, a band in which Joselo played bass.

Both used their free time at university to listen to bands on a boombox, with cassettes that they recorded and finding affinity in listening to bands that their classmates did not listen to as much.

"With Joselo I could share all that music that I couln't with anyone else. So we spent a year at school without going to class, only listening to music. We listened on the playground, he brought his cassette recorder. And my girlfriend at that time also brought her recorder. We played cassettes of The Cure, La Unión, all the Spanish scene, Loquillo, Radio Futura. Then we started to talk of making the band."

In 1987 they decided to form a band called Alicia ya no vive aquí, in which both could share their similarities, with a strong influence of Love and Rockets, La Unión and The Cure, which was joined by Joselo's brother Quique.

The band made no appearances.

One year after they decided to split up the band and they formed a new band: Café Tacvba.

Due to the arrival of his second child and as a tribute to his first, Rubén, together with his wife, decided to release Bienvenido al Sueño in 2006.

For this project he called himself Sizu Yantra and his wife, Psikini.

He was supported in his live appearances by a band of friends and relatives called Tepetokio.

In 2010 Rubén Albarrán formed the group Hoppo!, a Latin American folk song covers band, with two Chilean musicians and with Alejandro Flores, better known as "the fifth Tacvbo".

In subsequent appearances various musicians were added to the project.

In 2011, the band's appearances only consisted of Rubén and the Chilean musicians Rodrigo "El Chino" Aros and Juan Pablo "El Muñeco" Villanueva.

In addition to his records, Albarrán contributed in various beneficial associations.

In 2011, together with Ofelia Medina he made the theatrical performance El placer de nuestra lengua, consisting of a histrionic montage with erotic poetry.

The work had performances in Mexico, the United States and Spain.

Albarrán is distinguished for being an artist with a unique aesthetic.

As frontman of Café Tacvba he experimented in the creation of temporary characters, and always shows an energetic attitude in his performances.

Albarrán's constant change of names is due to the creation of characters or alter egos.

The singer has declared that he does it to "breathe fresh air" and free himself from "being Rubén".

In an interview in the Argentine music magazine Los Inrockuptibles he mentions the origin of his constant name changes: "Sometimes I regret [being Rubén Albarrán] and other times I take it as a game. On one hand, I free myself from the weight of being Rubén, and on the other, it's a breath of fresh air - besides, in short, it's therapeutic for me."

In 2016, he participated in the dubbing of the film Moana: a sea of adventures performing the song "I know the way" together with Opetaia Foa'i.

Albarrán has taken part in various duets and collaborations.