Beyoncé's "Texas Hold Em" gets played on country music radio after online campaign

Taking fans by surprise, "16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ‘Em” see Beyoncé leaning into a more Country-focussed sound. A fan sent in a request for Oklahoma’s KYKC station to play the song, and the general manager, Roger Harris replied: “We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station". After an online campaign, the station have since changed their tune.

Four hours after the online campaign erupted, due to one of the Beyhive claiming their refusal to play the song was “blatant racism and discrimination”, urging fans to send in more requests for them to play it, KYKC shared a photo showing that "Texas Hold ’Em" had been added to its playlist.

Oklahoma country radio station KYKC responds to fan’s request to play Beyoncé’s new song ‘Texas Hold 'Em’:

“We do not play Beyonce on KYKC as we are a country music station.” pic.twitter.com/XJaVvdwW6P

— Pop Base (@PopBase) February 13, 2024

“I’ve never experienced anything in my career like the amount of communications that we received in support of the song,” Harris said to NY Times. “Up until now, she hasn’t been a ‘country artist’,” Harris said in another statement to Entertainment Weekly. “We responded to the email in the same way we would have responded to someone requesting a Rolling Stones song on our country station.”

Since "Texas Hold 'Em" has been added to country radio stations, Beyoncé has officially earned her first ever charting single on country radio, following its debut at number 50. This makes it the first solo song by a black female artist to chart since Mickey Guyton's 2016 release, “Heartbreak Song”

I believe the last time Beyoncé had a song impacting all radio formats was with Irreplaceable, which went on to become the biggest female radio song in history (at the time)

Let’s start requesting: https://t.co/UJxqQtiAXy https://t.co/9NOpzvobi8

— act ii Updates (@B7Album) February 16, 2024