Flutes you: Lizzo and the woodwind renaissance

There are many things you might expect to find while waiting for an early morning flight at Los Angeles International airport. Overpriced breakfast sandwiches and bawling toddlers feature high on the list, but André 3000 pootling around playing a 40-minute flute solo isn’t usually a contender.

And yet that’s exactly what happened last month, with podcast producer Antonia Cereijido spotting the Outkast man strolling from gate to gate, casually going to town on a handcrafted Mayan wind instrument like the low-key legend he is. Of course, this isn’t the kind of moment that can pass without some sort of social media validation. Her joyous selfie with The King of Wind – as he shall now be known – has now been liked almost 400,000 times.

Flutes, you see, are currently having what’s known as “a bit of a moment”. Sure, they might be one of the world’s oldest-known pieces of kit for bashing out a tune on – the drum, obvs, takes the top spot here – but their time is now.

The flute’s brightest champion is the rapper Lizzo, who also just so happens to be a classically trained player. Her long silver sidekick Sasha Flute even has its own Instagram account with an extremely decent 130,000 followers. Sasha can be found at @sashabefluting if you wanna give her a follow and see the flute’s many joyful adventures, including outings with Gucci sunglasses and Nando’s takeaway bag. Truly, Sasha is living the rock star dream. Sasha recently joined Lizzo for her most fabulous outing yet, during her BET awards performance of Truth Hurts, which not only saw her twerking on a giant wedding cake but scoring a standing ovation from Rihanna and – maybe even more excitingly – the headline “Lizzo’s BET 2019 flute performance is a whole vibe” from the bad boys of ClassicFM.com.

“Lizzo transcends all kinds of stereotypes,” explains Lisa Nelsen, acting chair of the British Flute Society and steadfast Lizzo stan. “The flute gang are pretty ready to show off what we can do. Pop, classical, beatbox – we’ve got our fingers in lots of pots.”

Earlier this year, Will Ferrell even took Ron Burgundy out of semi-retirement to accept Lizzo’s jazz-flute challenge. She countered with a shot-for-shot recreation of Anchorman’s seminal club scene, set to her single Juice. 1-0 to Lizzo.

Norwegian-Mexican-American ambient artist Carmen Villain is also getting in on the action, making flute a key part of her dreamy new album Both Lines Will Be Blue. The playing comes courtesy of Johanna Scheie Orellana – formerly of Oslo electropop trio Sassy 009 – who has a particularly spiritual reasoning behind her love of the instrument.

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“Playing is a very physical and intimate experience because you have to create the sound within your body, almost like a singer,” she explains. “Sometimes I imagine that the airstream comes straight from my soul itself.” Rather than bashing out instantly iconic R&B hits like Lizzo, Orellana’s approach to Villain’s album is way more avant garde. “In one of the songs I’m blowing air through the instrument without any tone. When I listen to it now, I can hear my own vulnerability in the melodies.”

So that’s your artsy and hip-hop bases covered, but flautism has broken through into the middle American mainstream, too. America’s Got Talent host and secret flautist Terry Crews just joined a contestant on the show for a shirtless flute duet of Ginuwine’s Pony, much to Simon Cowell’s shock and abject horror. The contestant, sadly, did not make it through to the next round, but a life of mid-range Las Vegas hotel appearances surely awaits.

It is also true that pop’s fascination with the flute is nothing new. If you can, please forget Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson balancing on one leg with flute perched coyly against his pursed lips and instead focus on someone altogether more magical. “I remember Prince coming out with Gett Off in the 90s and there was a fabulous flute lick in it,” recalls Nelsen. “I had to learn it to get my students to do it.”

Honourable mentions must also go to the fluttering sample in Beastie Boys’ Sure Shot, the Mamas and the Papas’ California Dreamin’ and Justin Bieber’s unhealthy obsession with pan flutes: see everything he ever released in 2015. As nobody ever says: “If you’ve got it, flaut it.”