Source: James Devaney/Getty
An Oklahoma radio station is finding out exactly why you're not playing with the Bey Hive after you went viral for refusing to play Beyonce's new country release, “Texas Hold'Em.”
The backlash came after a fan took to social media to share SCORE's response to his online request to radio station KYKC, which read: “We don't play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station.” The small country music station in Ada, Oklahoma has been bombarded with complaints for refusing to play Beyoncé's debut tracks from Act II and was forced to change his tune, fans called out the station for playing a role in keeping black artists excluded from the genre.
KYKC-FM confirmed that they added the song to their country playlist, noting that it was also featured on the playlists of two other stations they oversee, KCFC-FM and KADA-FM.
Roger Harris, general manager of South Central Oklahoma Radio Enterprises, said the response was a “typical response” since KYKC does not [usually] play her music — noting that two of her other stations. Additionally, Harris said KYKC was unaware of the two new country songs and didn't “even have the song” at the time of the backlash, but after emails, calls and other requests flooded the station for the song, Harris said. they made an effort to identify it, listened to it and agreed that it sounded “country”.
“While Beyonce has long been prominent on our playlists for SCORE KADA and KXFC radio stations, she is not traditionally considered a country music artist,” Harris wrote. “While we were briefly unaware of the rapid success of her recently released offerings, her new country music was added to the KYKC playlist this morning.”
Beyoncé isn't the first artist with an R&B, Hip-Hop and Pop background to break into country music. Back in 2019, Lil Nas X's viral hit “Old Town Road” was kicked off Billboard's country charts because it “didn't embrace enough elements of today's country music,” even though it went on to make history as the highest-charting song in history.
