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.