Antonio Brown Says Kanye West Played a Huge Role in His New Album Despite Having No Feature

Even though Kanye West did not appear on Antonio Brown's new album ... the NFL star tells TMZ Sports the rapper still had a HUGE role in its production -- and he's super grateful for it.

AB says Ye oversaw a lot of the behind-the-scenes things that go into making his new "Paradigm" project ... explaining to us out in L.A. this week that "he oversaw the whole infrastructure."

"He paid for a lot of studio time," Brown said. "Ye had a lot to do with a lot of this production."

Brown went on to personally thank Ye and Donda Sports and "everybody that's been a part of this project."

As for a collab between the two, who became best of friends following AB's messy breakup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brown said it still might be coming down the road even though a track featuring the rappers didn't make it to this album.

"We still got a lot of things in the works," Brown said.

Brown -- who's album officially dropped on Wednesday -- tells us that while he's knee-deep in music at the moment ... a football future is still on his mind.

In fact, check out the clip, AB appears to think he's got plenty of gas left in his NFL tank.

SOURCE