Chicago musicians call a Spotify and Apple Music blackout for October 26-27 over AI music

Chicago musicians want you off Spotify and Apple Music on October 26 and 27.

About 20 of them stood in the rain outside the Chicago Federal Center on October 1, 2026, chanting “Pause AI!” and announcing the two-day blackout, as the Chicago Tribune first reported and Hoodline summarized. Their black T-shirts read “Human Music Only. Press Pause on AI.”

They want legal safeguards against AI copies of their work, and a clear line between AI music and theirs.

What the Chicago musicians want from the October 26-27 blackout

The ask is simple. Singer Melody Angel put it this way:

“

We want policy that says: This is fake music, and this is real music. We should have the choice.

Composer Tim Corpus read out a 2025 remark from Suno’s CEO, that most people don’t enjoy the time they spend making music, and answered it. “It is hard. It does take a lot of time and practice,” he told the crowd. Musician Jeannie Tanner asked listeners to keep AI-generated content out of their feeds.

The blackout targets both platforms, but Spotify has drawn most of the anger in Chicago for a year, because of pay. Rapper and poet Mykele Deville, who signed the 2025 letter, told CBS News Chicago back then that indie payouts are “fractions of a percentage of a penny”, and he kept his new album off Spotify. The “biggest disrespect”, he said, is AI-generated content: “It shows us that we’re replaceable.”

Spotify’s side, from the royalty report CBS cited: independent artists and labels generated more than $5 billion from Spotify in 2024, about half of its total royalties.

The rally is the campaign’s second round:

How Spotify and Apple Music label AI music in 2026

The “fake music, real music” label the musicians want already exists in a first version on both platforms.

Spotify announced its AI Persona badge on August 11, 2026. It flags artist profiles whose identity may be AI-generated, and keeps their music out of recommendations by default.

Apple told partners on August 20 that Made With AI labels are coming to Apple Music later this year. The catch: Apple only shows the label when the record label or distributor tags the track first.

So both labels exist, and neither one tells you how a song was made. Spotify’s badge reads the artist profile. Apple’s relies on whoever uploads the track to be honest.