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Beyoncé followers are forcing nation radio stations to play her new nation single, “Texas Maintain ‘Em.” One explicit Oklahoma-based radio station was moved to play it after initially denying it on their airways. Learn extra in regards to the Beyhive’s impression inside.
One fan emailed KYKC requesting Beyoncé’s new track, “Texas Maintain ‘Em, one among two nation songs the worldwide sensation launched on Tremendous Bowl Sunday. The fan’s request was met with pushback.
The Oklahoma-based radio station responded to the fan’s electronic mail, saying: “Hello — we don’t play Beyonce on KYKC as we’re a rustic music station.”
The fan posted a screenshot of their correspondence on X, previously Twitter, late Tuesday (Feb. 13) morning. The put up has since gone viral, and the Beyhive swarmed to make extra requests for “Texas Maintain ‘Em,” to be performed on the station and a number of other others.
The station obtained numerous calls and emails requesting for the track to be performed. A number of hours after the viral X put up, KYKC posted to Fb a picture of its present schedule, which confirmed the track in a 2:28 p.m. time slot.
“Plenty of calls coming in for Beyoncé’s Texas Maintain ‘Em,” the caption mentioned. “It’s arising in minutes.”
KYKC shared with NPR that they didn’t notice the track was out, and that the distributor had not but despatched it. The assertion additionally shared that native listeners, “didn’t actually need us to play it.”
“I’ve heard R&B stations play Adele, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake with no downside and didn’t inform them ‘Oh we not taking part in their music as a result of XYZ’,” one consumer mentioned. “The identical grace must be given when black musicians determined to pursue one other style of music [i.e.] nation.”
In a extra in depth assertion to The Tennessean, Roger Harris, the overall supervisor of South Central Oklahoma Radio Enterprises (SCORE), mentioned: “We’re a small market station. We’re not able to interrupt an artist or assist it that a lot, so it has to chart slightly bit increased for us so as to add it. However we love Beyoncé right here. We play her on our [other top 40 and adult hits stations] however we’re not taking part in her on our nation station but as a result of it simply got here out.”
As of seven:19 p.m. Tuesday, the station commented on Fb that it had already performed “Texas Maintain ‘Em” twice.
Lil Nas X confronted comparable backlash again in 2019 when he launched “Previous City Street,” which blatantly fuses sounds of rap and nation music. The track first charted on Billboard’s Scorching 100, Scorching Nation Songs and Scorching R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. However the publication later eliminated the track from the nation chart, claiming it didn’t have sufficient components of nation music. The choice was criticized by nation mainstay Billy Ray Cyrus, who was ultimately featured on the remix.
Do higher, nation music, as a result of Beyoncé is clearly right here to place her lasso within the ring.
