Oklahoma Station Backtracks After Rejecting Beyoncé’s New Music

Whew! The Beyhive was buzzing angrily about Oklahoma station KYKC 100.1 FM refusing to play Beyoncé‘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 Beyoncé stan who shared their emailed rejection and the station spoke to The Shade Room about the Feb. 13 exchange.

Beyoncé Stan Shares What Oklahoma Station Said In The Emails

As mentioned, Justin McGowan reached 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.

RELATED: Marketing Queen! Beyoncé Releases Country Singles After Teasing Them In Super Bowl Commercial

Screenshot provided by Beyoncé fan, Justin McGowan

 

However, shortly after submitting, someone at the Oklahoma station shut down the Beyoncé request from a SCORE Broadcasting email address.

“Hi — we do not play Beyoncé 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 Beyoncé 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.

Screenshots provided by Beyoncé fan, Justin McGowan

KYKC Explains Their Initial Reaction To The Beyoncé Request

When The Shade Room contacted the Oklahoma station, they labeled their initial response to the Beyoncé 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. Beyoncé 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 Beyoncé 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 Beyoncé’s ‘Texas Hold ‘Em.’ It’s coming up in minutes.” 

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

RELATED: Aht Aht! K. Michelle Addresses Folks Mentioning Her After Beyoncé Released Country Songs

The Shade Room Social Media Editor Brianne contributed to this exclusive report.