Ashley Crawford didn’t give herself the moniker Flutebae — the internet did. And she ran with it.
The classically trained flutist is extremely talented. She has a master’s degree in instrumental pedagogy and classical flute performance to prove it. But it’s the way she uses her flute — and the way she uses social media — that makes Crawford unique.
Crawford wears many hats, from flute professor at Tennessee State University to her roles as conductor and musical director of the Nashville Philharmonic Flute Ensemble, president of the Nashville African American Wind Symphony, a mother and more. She’s collaborated with myriad artists and helped create TSU’s Aristocrat of Bands’ Grammy-winning album The Urban Hymnal. She’s featured (as Flutebae) on the Aristocrats of Bands single "Fly." Her Instagram account (@profflutebae), which has roughly 23,000 followers, is full of original music and flute renditions of songs from pop artists like Beyoncé and Doja Cat.
Flutebae’s internet fame was kicked off in 2017 with the #MaskOffChallenge, a social media trend fueled by the Future single “Mask Off.”
“The first person that I saw do it was Lizzo,” says Crawford. “People kept tagging me in her video, and I’m like ‘What is this song she’s playing?’... Different instrumentalists were learning this line and posting themselves playing it — #MaskOffChallenge. So I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m gonna do it.’ … It took off so fast. And there was no watermark on the video, no one knew who I was. So people called me Flutebae.”
Crawford is a trailblazer, but her path to success presented challenges. After earning her master’s degree, Crawford was prepared to start working with symphonies, but a flurry of auditions throughout the country yielded no job offers. “Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, it didn’t work out the way that I intended [it] to,” says Crawford. “That was pretty heartbreaking for me, because I was like, OK, well, what am I gonna do now? This was supposed to be the thing that deemed success on this instrument.’”
Crawford started teaching flute lessons and eventually landed her current gig at TSU — her undergrad alma mater. Then, of course, came the #MaskOffChallenge and its subsequent opportunities.
“What this did for me is it liberated me from basically the constraints of classical music,” says Crawford. “I don’t have to worry about someone feeling some type of way because I didn’t interpret Mozart the way that you felt like I should. But I’m gonna play this rap song, or I’m gonna play these classical lines over this rap song — the way that Flutebae wants to do it. And now no one can say anything. So just from unlocking that, I feel like it was a self-realization within myself, like this is the freedom that I need. … Now you’re seeing an intersectionality with it. Not only are you seeing this classical flutist flex all of these things on these tracks, but you’re seeing a Black classical flutist do it.”
Crawford also imparts the lessons she’s learned to her current students.
“None of them are music majors, but they love to play the flute,” says Crawford. “I feel like what I do keeps that fire ignited in them. Because they see that there’s more out there than what they learned in high school or what the classical, more uptight, traditional flute study would be. It’s way more lax with me. If you want to do classical track, we can do classical track; if you want to do jazz, we can do jazz; if you want to learn how to play hip-hop, we can do that.”
Photographed by Eric England at Tennessee State University
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