Elena Ayodele is the talented flutist who played "Mask Off" for Future

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Meet Future’s “Mask Off” Flutist Elena Ayodele

Flutes are BIG in hip-hop these days. Producers like Metro Boomin’ Boi-1da and Zaytoven have helped popularize the woodwind instrument over the past several years with hits like Gucci Mane’s “Back On Road”, 21 Savage’s “X”, D.R.A.M.’s “Broccoli” and last, but certainly not least, Future’s ubiquitous trap banger “Mask Off”.

That’s where 22-year-old Elena Ayodele comes in. She had recorded her first album by age 9. In 2013 Elena was a U.S Presidential Scholar in the Arts, AND a member of the Grammy Band and Choir. The talented and beautiful flutist took the stage with Nayvadius at Coachella this year to literally breathe new life into the song that we’ve all heard a gajillion times.

The folks at Noisey recently caught up with the music prodigy to get her thoughts on that experience as well as what’s next for her career.

“My personal music that I make is much more in the Future lane, it’s not the jazz stuff that I did before,” Ayodele explains. “So it was really great for me to do this Coachella gig because it was really in line with what I’m about to put out. It has a little bit of a hip-hop vibe, a little bit of an R&B vibe—all of that, but with a little bit of a different sense of musicality because the flute brings something different to it.”

On Coachella:

Are you going to be performing with him again?

I’m not sure, hopefully! They’re about to do a tour and maybe I’ll get involved with that. This time, I just played “Mask Off” and we were going to do a little bit of a longer thing, kind of an open flute solo thing, but we ended up running short on time. But it was still really cool, they had me climb all the way up on this ladder and get lowered down on a platform from the top. They wanted it so that when “Mask Off” hit, it would be a thing. It was funny because as soon as the crowd saw me they went wild, because they knew it was gonna be “Mask Off” as soon as they saw a flute. So that was awesome.

Flip the page to see more of this remarkable young lady’s accomplishments.

Images via Instagram

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