Not yeehaw enough for country radio stations, huh?
Beyoncé has officially entered her Act II era, which had been teased for a long time but was only officially confirmed following her commercial spot at the 2024 Super Bowl telecast on Sunday, Feb. 11. Following the announcement of Act II — which made it clear that this album is within the genre of country music — Beyoncé released two country songs, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.”
However, a fan shared an X post with what appears to be an email from a country radio station allegedly refusing to play Beyoncé’s new songs. “Hi — we do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station. Thank you,” the alleged email response reads.
This X user (@jussatto) wrote in the post: “I requested ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ at my local country radio station (KYKC) and after requesting, I received an email from the radio station stating ‘We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station.’”
The alleged email response appears to have been written by an employee of S.C.O.R.E. Broadcasting, a.k.a. South Central Oklahoma Radio Enterprises, which owns the Ada, Oklahoma-based country radio station KYKC. There’s also a timestamp at the bottom showing that the email response was allegedly sent on “Tuesday, February 13, 2024 at 09:40:15.”
For obvious reasons, the discourse surrounding this viral X post makes mention of potential prejudices that this country radio station might have behind the alleged decision not to play country songs from an artist like Beyoncé. The majority of artists who get played on country music stations are male and white — which Beyoncé is not.
The history of country music, which was created and popularized by Black artists, is clearly going to be an ongoing point of contention among conservative audiences that are now the biggest consumers of the genre. We could foresee that situations like these would happen if Beyoncé were to drop a country album… but it’s pretty shocking that this is already happening just two days after she released these two first songs.
We’re team Beyoncé over here — and we also hope that country music is able to make room for women, non-white people, and LGBTQ+ folx in an industry that, for years now, seems to have been conquered by a particularly conservative and exclusive (as in non-inclusive) audience.
