US comedian Hannibal Buress has served as a special guest during Flying Lotus’ recent set, impersonating the great MF Doom onstage.

When it comes to masked musicians, there’s often a lot of trickery that can either be employed or exploited. Why, when it came to TISM’s 1989 appearance on Hey Hey It’s Saturday, the ever-mysterious band expanded its size to roughly 28 members as more and more individuals with hidden faces came out of the woodwork.

Such was the beauty of the situation though; with the band usually wearing masks, no one could tell who was who and which person was not in fact a legitimate member of the group.

However, 30 years later, it appears as though hidden identities are still being used for the purpose of onstage trickery, with comedian Hannibal Buress doing just that.

As Rolling Stone reports, the great Flying Lotus was performing at the Adult Swim Fest over the weekend when he hinted to his fans that he was about to bring up friend and collaborator MF Doom onto the stage.

“I know y’all know about my man MF Doom, right?” the producer asked fans as the masked artist ostensibly made his way onto the stage.

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As fans cheered, the new addition began to rap along to ‘Accordion’ as Flying Lotus left the stage, leaving many completely astounded with what they were witnessing.

Sadly, the excitement was short-lived, with Flying Lotus soon removing the metal mask to reveal that comedian Hannibal Buress was in fact the special guest.

“Hannibal, what are you doing here?” FlyLo asked. “I wanted to help out,” Buress replied, as screams of “fuckin’ Hannibal” rang out from the crowd.

Of course, the notion of MF Doom using a stand-in or impersonator isn’t exactly far-fetched, with the artist defending allegations that he sent a lip-syncer out on tour in his place back in 2007.

“Everything that we do is villain style,” Doom explained to Rolling Stone. “Everybody has the right to get it or not get it. Once I throw it out, it’s there for interpretation.”

Check out ‘Accordion’ by MF Doom:

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