One Oklahoma country radio station was moved to reverse its decision of not playing Beyoncé's new country song "Texas Hold 'Em" after receiving a large amount of backlash. A listener recently requested 100.1 KYKC in Ada, Oklahoma, to play the singer's new song, which is a single from her forthcoming album, Act II of her three-part "Renaissance" project. She released the song on Super Bowl Sunday, February 11, 2024, alongside another single titled "16 Carriages." Beyoncé's new country album will debut on March 29.
The listener posted the radio station's response on X (formerly known as Twitter) on February 12, 2024. Going by username @jussatto, he shared the email screenshot from KYKC. "We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station," it read.
"This station needs to be held accountable for their blatant racism and discrimination against Beyoncé," the listener wrote. "@1001KYKC This is absolutely ridiculous and racist. You guys should be ashamed. I grew up listening to your station."
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He added, "PLEASE EMAIL THE RADIO STATION TO REQUEST THE SONG. [email protected]." Other X users replied to the thread with their outrage.
"This is such a nasty email," one person commented. "Even if they could argue that they hadn’t heard the newest singles (they’d be lying), they have no excuse for Daddy Lessons which has been around for years. It was performed at the CMAs too so they know Beyoncé has a country number. Racists!"
Another response showed a user's email to the radio station.
"You guys rejected the fans request based of the discriminating thought that Beyoncé does not belong on a 'country radio station,'" it read in part. "It's time to acknowledge where Country music really came from, because it's apart of Black history. Now pay respect to it."
After the backlash, the station tweeted that it would play the song. "We initially refused to play it in the same manner if someone requested us to play the Rolling Stones on our country station," Roger Harris, the general manager, said a the statement. "Fact is we play Beyonce’ on TWO of our other stations and love her…she is an icon."
"We just didn’t know about the song….then when we found out about it, we tried to get the song….which we did and we have already played it 3 times on YKC, our country station," the statement continued. "We also play her on 105.5, KXFC-FM and KADA-FM 0n 99.3,” referring to the other stations owned by the company.
He went on to say that it was tough for the station to get access to the song. "We are not a 'big boy' station and getting record companies to service us is tough," Roger said. "But…finally we got our hands on it, and based on the fan support, we decided to air it…truthfully, normally we would (usually) wait a while to see how the song performs on the charts and on bigger country stations than ours, as we are just the little guys."
"We love Beyonce’," he concluded. "We just were behind this country music changeover…. But, now that she’s coming out as a country artist, we want to be all over it……we are not fools…we know how big she is and we are happy to air it and wish her the best success."
