US singer/songwriter Beyonce arrives for the world premiere of Disney's "The Lion King" at the Dolby theatre on July 9, 2019 in Hollywood. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
Whew! The Beyhive was buzzing angrily about Oklahoma station KYKC 100.1 FMrefusing to play Beyonc‘s new track. The country music station apparently didn’t categorize ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ as a country joint and made sure to let a stan know that — twice.
Though KYKC ultimately revealed their intent to play the song, it took a whole lotta ENERGY to get ’em there. Keep scrolling to see what happened.The Beyonc stan who shared their emailed rejection and the station spoke to The Shade Room about the Feb. 13 exchange.
As mentioned, Justin McGowanreached out to KYKC on Tuesday to request the country tune first teased in a Verizon commercial. That was a lil’ fact Justin teased in the request form.
However, shortly after submitting, someone at the Oklahoma station shut down the Beyonc request from a SCORE Broadcasting email address.
“Hi — we do not play Beyonc on KYKC as we are a country music station. Thank you.”
Not satisfied with their miscategorization of Texas Hold ‘Em, Justin followed up, highlighting Black Americans’ contribution to the genre.
“‘Texas Hold ‘Em is a new song and it is a country song. It is also labeled as country on Spotify and Apple Music. Please play this song and stop being discriminatory towards her. (By the way, Black people created country music.)”
However, the KYKC employee doubled down and gave an example as to how their rejection isn’t discriminatory.
“We will check it out. If it’s appropriate to the format, we will play it. Meanwhile, we play tons of Beyonc on our 99.3 station and lots more on our 105.5 station, so… “discriminatory” we are not. Thanks.”
See the email exchange screenshots below.
When The Shade Room contacted the Oklahoma station, they labeled their initial response to the Beyonc request as a “generic reply.” However, in their exclusive reply, KCYC admitted they could’ve “been more detailed.”
“If someone emailed our country station and requested a Rolling Stones song, we would have probably replied the same. Beyonc is known for NOT being a country artist, so we just replied to that effect.”
The statement continued:
“But…we are actually excited that she has ‘crossed over’ to a new genre and we will watch it closely to see if bigger stations start playing it and to watch it on the chart. We do play the song on our Top 40 station, KXFC, but haven’t added it yet to our country station. We are big Beyonc fans here and really hope it does well, as we like seeing new artists get into the format.”
Swipe below to see the statement.
Shortly after giving The Shade Room their exclusive statement, KYKC took to their X (formerly Twitter) for the first time since May 2020. Their tune seemed to have changed.
They shared a photo of their playlist and ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ was scheduled to play at 2:28:35 PM local time.
“Lots of call coming in for Beyonc’s ‘Texas Hold ‘Em.’ It’s coming up in minutes.”
The Shade Room Social Media Editor Brianne contributed to this exclusive report.
