Beyoncé Fan’s Radio Request Reignites Country Music Debate

In Oklahoma, a small country music station that initially refused a listener’s request to play a new song by Beyoncé was forced to change its tune after an uproar from fans who say that Black artists are too often excluded from the genre.

On Tuesday morning, Justin McGowan requested that the D.J.s at KYKC, a country music radio station in Ada, play “Texas Hold ’Em,” one of two new songs Beyoncé released as announced in a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday.

Beyoncé, who grew up in Houston, sings about hoedowns, and the twangy song also features a fellow Black Grammy winner, Rhiannon Giddens, on banjo and viola.

The station manager, Roger Harris, emailed Mr. McGowan back with a concise rejection: “We do not play Beyoncé at KYKC as we are a country music station.” In sending the email, Mr. Harris unwittingly ignited a new flame in a long-simmering debate over how Black artists fit into a genre that has Black music at its roots.

In the Super Bowl ad, Beyoncé joked that her new release would “break the internet.” She wasn’t kidding.

Mr. McGowan put a screenshot of the rejection on social media, tagging a Beyoncé fan group in a post that drew 3.4 million views on X and sparked conversations on Reddit and TikTok.