The BeyHive Convince Country Radio to Play Beyoncé's 'Texas Hold 'Em' After Request Denied by Oklahoma Station

The BeyHive laid their cards down, down, down to get Beyoncé on country radio. 

After Queen Bey, 42, released two country songs, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” on Sunday as she announced a forthcoming album within the genre, her fans went viral as they convinced an Oklahoma country music station to play one of her new tracks after previously denying a request. 

On Tuesday, a fan on X (formerly Twitter) prompted a conversation online about whether the Grammy winner’s new music would be welcomed into country airplay after posting about their failed attempt to request “Texas Hold ‘Em” on Oklahoma station KYKC 100.1 FM. 

X user @jussatto shared a screenshot of their email exchange with the radio station and wrote, “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.”

“This station needs to be held accountable for their blatant racism and discrimination against Beyoncé,” they wrote in a follow-up post. 

As they also tagged fan account @BeyLegion in their original post, the BeyHive assembled to inform KYKC about the superstar’s transition into country. 

“#BeyHive! Let's kindly educate Oklahoma country radio station 1001 KYKC that Beyoncé's upcoming project and already released singles are indeed country music! Remember to be kind and diplomatic. 🤠👢,” the fan account posted, adding the station’s X handle. 

In the replies, many fans wrote that they called in or sent an email to KYKC, and some even posted videos of their calls playing audio of the song to the station on TikTok. 

After the Oklahoma radio outlet appeared to respond to several fans on X by saying they would play “Texas Hold ‘Em” when it began charting higher on country music charts, they posted that the song was being added to their rotation. “Lots of [calls] coming in for Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s coming up in minutes,” they wrote in a Tuesday afternoon post featuring a photo of their playlist, with the track slotted between Zach Bryan’s “Tishomingo” and Carrie Underwood’s “Wasted.”

KYKC’s general manager Roger Harris also explained their initial reasoning for denying the song request to TODAY in a Wednesday interview, revealing that the station wasn’t aware of it at first. 

"We initially refused to play it in the same manner if someone requested us to play the Rolling Stones on our country station," Harris said in a statement to TODAY. "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."

The general manager revealed that once they found out about the song, they tried to access it and have since played it several times on the country station. Harris added, "We are not a 'big boy' station and getting record companies to service us is tough.” 

The statement continued, "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."

According to Billboard, “Texas Hold ‘Em” was officially serviced by Columbia Records to country radio on Tuesday. The song was also reportedly added to CMT’s streaming stations and several Spotify and Apple Music country playlists.

Beyoncé surprised fans by dropping her two new singles on Sunday in the midst of the Super Bowl, shortly after her ad with Verizon aired during the broadcast and she posted a teaser revealing that act ii is due out in March. 

The pop icon shared a teaser on Instagram seemingly inspired by the classic 1984 western Paris, Texas and featuring a group of bystanders in the desert looking up at her billboard while a snippet of “Texas Hold ‘Em” played. 

The songs — each featuring their own country-inspired single artwork and roots sound — dropped shortly after. 

The full project, which is currently untitled but being referred to as act ii of Renaissance, is due out March 29. It comes a little over a year and a half after the acclaimed, house-inspired record arrived in summer 2022.