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Washington Post Writer Back With Another Hot Take on Whiteness and Country Radio

Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File

It was last summer when Washington Post writer Emily Yahr posted her hot take on Luke Comb's cover of Tracey Chapman's "Fast Car" topping the country charts. Chapman is a queer black woman … it brought up some "complicated emotions" — and Community Notes:

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Fast-forward to today, when a black woman, Beyoncé, has a number-one hit single on the country charts — something she did herself despite having "almost zero chance."

This led Yahr to scratch her chin again and come up with another Washington Post feature: "Beyoncé has a country hit. How will country radio handle that?"

Country radio seems to be handling it by playing it if it's at the top of the charts.

The "controversy" seems to be over one country radio DJ who didn't know Beyoncé had a country album out. Yahr writes:

When Beyoncé released a video during the Super Bowl that featured the plucking of a banjo, followed by two country-sounding songs titled “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages,” the internet lit up with anticipation. After years of hints, Beyoncé was embracing her Texas roots and making a country album, scheduled to drop March 29. Two days later, an online fury erupted: A fan emailed a small Oklahoma radio station and requested “Texas Hold ’Em,” only to receive a reply that read, “‘We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station.”

The fan posted the email on social media and KYKC was flooded with furious messages that pointed to the incident as an example of racism in a majority-White genre that has long sidelined Black singers, ever since the music charts separated “hillbilly music” from “race records” in the early 20th century.

In media interviews, the Oklahoma station manager said he had missed the news that Beyoncé released a country single, and after seeing the passionate response, added the song to the station’s playlist. (That same day, Sony Music Nashville, owned by the same parent company as Beyoncé's Columbia Records, started officially promoting the song to country radio.) But the viral incident inspired a wave of online discourse that many in the industry have been having for years about the lack of success that artists of color have found in country music, despite the genre’s roots in Black culture.

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"But the viral incident inspired a wave of online discourse that many in the industry have been having for years about the lack of success that artists of color have found in country music, despite the genre’s roots in Black culture." Oh, shut up. If more blacks made country records, country radio would be playing more black artists.

Tracey Chapman's "Fast Car" was named Song of the Year by the Country Music Awards, and Combs performed a duet with Chapman at the 2024 Grammys, and Combs took home the Best Country Solo Performance. It's a great song.

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"How will country radio handle that"? They'll play Beyoncé because she has a country record out. Didn't Beyoncé know the racist hicks of country music would never accept her?

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