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Beyonce‘s BeyHive, her army of fans, was out in full force falsely accusing Oklahoma’s 100.1 KYKC Country Music radio station of ‘blatant racism’ for not playing Beyonce’s new song, Texas Hold ‘Em, when it was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding.
Beyonce recently announced new Country Music album, act ii, which will be a continuation of 2022’s Renaissance. And the social media attacks began after a fan of hers requested the new Country song Texas Hold ‘Em be played on Ada, Oklahoma’s 100.1 KYKC radio station.
This fan got back a response saying they don’t play Beyonce’s music because they are a Country Music radio station. That fan then went on to demand the station be held accountable for ‘blatant racism and discrimination.’ Those two viral posts can be seen here:
This station needs to be held accountable for their blatant racism and discrimination against Beyoncé.
— JUSTIN 🫧 (@jussatto) February 13, 2024
Meanwhile, the Country Music radio station in Oklahoma had no idea whatsoever that Beyonce’s new songs were, in fact, Country Music. A spokesman for 100.1 KYKC, general manager Roger Harris, was quick to respond to the backlash from the BeyHive who were falsely accusing the radio station of discrimination and racism when the reality of the situation was nobody had informed them that Beyonce’s new Country songs even existed yet.
Roger Harris released a statement saying “we initially refused to play it in the same manner if someone requested us to play the Rolling Stones on our country station. Fact is we play Beyonce’ 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 3 times on YKC, our country station. We also play her on 105.5, KXFC-FM and KADA-FM 0n 99.3.”
This went as far as the New York Times who wrote an article about this manufactured controversy. Manager Roger Harris told the Times “we haven’t played her on our country station because she’s not a country artist,” he said. “Well, now I guess she wants to be, and we’re all for it.”
100.1 KYKC then tweeted for the first time in 4 years, sharing that Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em was in their lineup and they had a lot of calls coming in requesting the song:
Could this have been handled differently by all sides involved? Absolutely. But the fact is that a Beyonce fan emailed the radio station assuming they knew the song was Country Music then got outraged and falsely accused the station of racism and discrimination all while the radio station still had no clue it was a Country song.
The response from the radio stations seems like the same response a listener would get if they requested Wu-Tang Clan, Manu Chao, BTS, One Direction, or any other artist who falls outside of the Country Music genre and they explained as much in the follow-up statement.
Distilled down, this is a very clear instance of an angry social media mob manufacturing outrage over a perceived aggrievance that never existed in the first place. Meanwhile, it just raised the profile of Beyonce’s new Country Music song which has 3.178 million views on YouTube in the first 3 days:
All of this could have been avoided if the BeyHave member replied to the email and asked ‘do you realize this is a Country Music song?’ If that happened, we’d never be talking about this at all. So let this be a lesson to not assume the worst in people, especially when it’s an instance where a radio station would actually benefit GREATLY by playing Beyonce’s new song.