The devil may work hard, but Beyoncé’s beyhive works harder. And if you needed more proof of that, look no further than their latest move that got a local radio station to do an about face regarding Bey’s latest singles. I’ll explain.
You see, on Super Bowl Sunday, Queen Bey broke the internet once again when she dropped not one—but two new songs as a part of “Renaissance Act II.” Titled “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold’Em,” respectively, the new songs were Bey’s official introduction to her new era which is explicitly and unapologetically country. Whereas Act I revolved around house music/house music influences—based off these newly released tracks, this Act II will see Yoncé pushing the Yee-Haw Agenda and naturally—BeyHive members were head over heels about it. In fact, they were so excited, one fan in particular decided to reach out to their local country music station in Southern Oklahoma to request for them to play “Texas Hold’Em.”
In an unexpected (but slightly expected) turn, the station responded back by saying that they “don’t play Beyoncé as we are a country music station.”
Well, cue the mighty and thunderous buzz of the beyhive because less than three hours later, the station logged into their own personal Twitter page to share that they’d receive “lots of calls” for Bey’s song and that it would, in fact, be playing. Bee stings and swarm attacks diverted, great job KYKC.
Additionally, the stations general manager Roger Harris said in a statement to TODAY:
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.
He later added: “We are not a ‘big boy’ station and getting record companies to service us is tough. But...finally we got our hands on it, and based on the fan support, we decided to air it...truthfully, normally we would (usually) wait a while to see how the song performs on the charts and on bigger country stations than ours, as we are just the little guys.”
Backlash towards Bey entering her Country Girl Era is to be expected to a certain extent. Remember when she brought The Chicks (formerly known as The Dixie Chicks) out to help her perform “Daddy Lessons” back at the 2016 CMA Awards? That duet sparked so much internal debate within the country music space, CMA took the performance down from YouTube (and if you’re still wondering—it’s still not on there.) But what should be noted is that the Country Music Television host Cody Alan is willing and ready to embrace Bey’s new lane.
“When I saw the headline, something along the lines of, ‘Beyoncé to release new country music,’ I thought, ‘Wow, that is so good for us,’” he told TMZ on Tuesday. “If you’re a Beyoncé fan, maybe you’re like, ‘What is country music? What are the sounds that I might like over there?’”
He continued: “Isn’t it cool that Beyoncé, as big as she is as an A-list superstar, wants to play and do songs that are more country in nature? I just think it’s so cool, honestly, that someone of her caliber would say, ‘Let me do a country song or two. Let me give you a little bit of that flavor because I kind of like what they do over there in country music.’ To me, all are welcome here; bring what you got. Good music is good music.”
Cody is right, good music is good music and all should be welcomed. But let’s not forget that Black people also invented country music. So it’s not so much of Bey coming into an untapped genre as much as it really is her just deciding to highlight and reclaim a genre that’s gotten whitewashed for decades. And to that I say: YEE-HAW!