A small Oklahoma country radio station learned not to mess with the BeyHive when they declined to play Beyoncé’s new country song, “Texas Hold ’Em,” on air.
On Feb. 12, an X user named Justin took to the platform with a screenshot of an email response from 100.1 KYKC, a country station in Ada, Oklahoma, after he requested Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold’ Em.”
“Hi. We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station,” the radio station replied. “Thank you.”
Justin called out the station, accusing the company of practicing “blatant racism and discrimination against” Beyoncé, tagging them in a subsequent post.
“@1001KYKC This is absolutely ridiculous and racist. You guys should be ashamed. I grew up listening to your station,” Justin tweeted, encouraging the BeyHive to bare their stingers at the radio station via email.
The BeyHive certainly didn’t disappoint, and KYKC played “Texas Hold ’Em” at least three times on the air following the callout.
Score Broadcasting’s general manager, Roger Harris, emailed TODAY, confirming they played the song and claimed they didn’t know Beyoncé dropped new country tracks. They tried to paint themselves as non-racists by claiming they would’ve done the same if someone had requested the Rolling Stones.
“We initially refused to play it in the same manner if someone requested us to play the Rolling Stones on our country station,” Harris said. “Fact is, we play Beyoncé 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 three times on YKC, our country station. We also play her on 105.5, KXFC-FM and KADA-FM 0n 99.3,” he clarified, referring to the company’s other stations.”
Harris added that KYKC wasn’t a “big boy” station and that getting their hands on the record was hard, but it happened.
He said they played it as soon as they got the record even though they usually waited “to see how the song performs on the charts and on bigger country stations.”
Another X user named Josh Landry heard “Texas Hold ’Em” being played on another OK radio station. However, the host complained that a particular aspect of the song didn’t sound country.
“The music is country, the instruments are country, but something else about it makes me think it’s not country,” the host reportedly said.
The X user couldn’t remember the name of the radio station. Bummer.
This isn’t the first time Beyoncé ruffled white country fans’ feathers. We can’t forget her “Daddy Lessons” performance with the Chicks at the CMAs.
“Daddy Lessons” is a country tune from her Lemonade album. In 2016, Beyoncé took the CMA stage with The Chicks (formerly Dixie Chicks, they changed it to support the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement).
Despite it being an excellent performance, it ground white viewers’ gears. And the CMAs catered to the racists’ cries and scrubbed Beyoncé and the Chicks from their website and social media.
Beyoncé dropped two country singles, “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ’Em,” both expected to be on her upcoming album, Act II, as part of her three-part Renaissance project.
The new country album will be released March 29.
