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André 3000 used to be famous as one-half of Outkast. But after releasing New Blue Sun on Friday, November 17, André 3000 is firmly cemented as a famous flutist. A solo album 17 years in the making, New Blue Sun predictably garnered mostly positive and widespread reaction over the weekend, even though it isn’t the rap album people have been desperately awaiting. Among the reaction was a rumor about whether André 3000 played the flute on Future’s “Mask Off,” arguably as surprising as the strictly instrumental album itself.

On Sunday, November 19, several outlets ran with a comment from Metro Boomin, who produced “Mask Off” for Future’s 2017 self-titled album. OnThinIce on X (formerly known as Twitter) cited a since-deleted post and wrote, “Metro Boomin reveals André 3000 played the flute on the intro of ‘Mask Off’ [flame emoji, flute emoji].” Other users have since added the context, “Metro was joking here. André 3000 did not play the flute on Mask Off. The flute is part of the sample.”

If that weren’t enough, Metro Boomin commented on Complex‘s Instagram post, including a video of Metro saying that Andre played the flute on “Mask Off” before playing the track. Complex aggregated it with the framing that André 3000 did, in fact, play flute on “Mask Off,” but Metro Boomin quickly shut that down in the post’s comment section.

“How are you all even considered a real news outlet?” Metro wrote.

Luckily, to avoid any future confusion, people can turn to eight New Blue Sun tracks if they want to hear André 3000 playing the flute.

New Blue Sun is out now via Epic Records. Find more information here.

Andre 3000’s new jazz, new age, ambient, and flute-heavy behemoth New Blue Sun is here- his first solo album ever. What’s more is that, even though this isn’t a hip-hop album, his press run for it with NPR and GQ actually yielded some pretty interesting discussions and reflections from him on the genre. Even though 3 Stacks isn’t putting out rap music of his own, he’s definitely still tapped into what’s going on right now. In fact, he’s much more in the know than you might think, so much so that he might’ve contributed to one of the biggest rap hits of the 2010s decade.

Moreover, during what seems to be Future’s birthday celebration, Metro Boomin played their collab “Mask Off.” Before letting it drop, though, he had the following bombshell claim- or, most likely, a very timely and funny joke- to say to the crowd. “Yo, I’m letting you know Andre 3000 played the flute on this motherf***er!” the producer said with a smile. Though the chances of this being true are very slim, and it seems like a light-hearted and respectful jest, the Outkast member did say he has secret performance credits on other artist’s songs. So, who knows; Metro might just be flexing on us.

Metro Boomin Plays With Fan Expectations & Invokes Andre 3000 Flute Card: Watch

“I’ve actually played some wind things that I’ve put out in the world,” Andre 3000 told GQ. “I called myself another name under different artists that are out there that, you know, I was just kinda testing it out in a way. From known artists, and they’ve been cool about keeping it secret.” Perhaps Metro Boomin finally broke that rule, but don’t get your hopes up: he knows exactly how people will hear a flute nowadays and think of the legendary MC.

Meanwhile, the St. Louis native still has his collaborative album with Future in the cards, which he’s been very excited about teasing. Maybe this is where Andre Benjamin will reconnect with his Dungeon Family colleague, and actually contribute a flute to a Metro beat. Jokes aside, it’s good to know that the HEROES & VILLAINS mastermind is up to date with the memes. For more news and the latest updates on Andre 3000 and Metro Boomin, stay up to date on HNHH.

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