Beyoncé’s Management Apparently Called And Thanked A Local Country Radio Station For Playing Her New Country Song After A Whole Load Of Drama

Amid conversation that Black people are actively excluded from the country music scene, a local country radio station rejected a request to play Beyoncé’s new song by stating: “We do not play Beyonce on KYKC as we are a country music station.”

On Sunday, Beyoncé caused a social media storm when she announced that she will be dropping the much-anticipated second act of her 2022 album, Renaissance, on March 29.

Closeup of Beyoncé onstage smiling

It didn’t take long for people to speculate that this was because Beyoncé — who was born and raised in Houston, Texas — is a Black artist, and history seemingly repeated itself the following year when Black musician Lil Nas X’s hit country song “Old Town Road” was snubbed by the country music chart.

Closeup of Beyoncé at the Grammys wearing a large cowboy hat

The signs began to emerge almost immediately, with Variety seemingly avoiding referring to Beyoncé’s new songs as country, instead saying that they have “strong country influences” — prompting heaps of backlash.

Closeup of Beyoncé smiling while wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat

They wrote: “Hi - we do not play Beyonce on KYKC as we are a country music station. Thank you.”

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. @BeyLegion pic.twitter.com/eQksQemk6m

— JUSTIN 🫧 (@jussatto) February 13, 2024
Twitter @jussatto / Via Twitter: @jussatto

He captioned the screenshot: “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,’” and it soon gained traction.

Many felt that the station’s response was reflective of a wider issue, with one person asking: “Is it that they don’t play Beyoncé or they don’t play Black people???” Another claimed: “the racism we're about to bear witness to because Beyonce is digging into her country roots is going to be intergalactic.”

Somebody else tweeted: “The racism we always knew was there is revealing itself already and she hasn’t even dropped the album yet.”

But after Justin’s tweet went viral, TMZ reported that KYKC only rejected the Beyoncé request because they didn’t realize that the star had moved into the country genre — and the station has since taken to their social media pages to clarify that they are now playing the new songs.

Lots of call coming in for Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s coming up in minutes pic.twitter.com/w9hZ24w4aw

— 100.1 KYKC (@1001KYKC) February 13, 2024
Twitter @1001KYKC / Via Twitter: @1001KYKC

Sharing a photo of “Texas Hold ‘Em” in their schedule, they wrote: “Lots of calls coming in for Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ‘Em.  It’s coming up in minutes.” 

Replying to comments on their Facebook account, the station’s social media manager maintained that the initial snub was totally unintentional as they insisted that they previously “didn’t know” Beyoncé had a country song, adding: “Then no one would send us a copy until today.”

Screenshot of KYKC's Facebook comments

They reiterated in another post: “we DID want to play it after we found out she released a country song...we didn't have it.”

"we didn't have it"

Thankfully, all’s well that ends well, with KYKC also claiming that Beyoncé’s management had since called them to say thank you for playing her song, in spite of the misunderstanding.

"her management called us and thanked us ."
"we love feedback of all kinds."

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