Dr. Dre Says He’s Going “Off the Grid” for a Year or Two — After 41 Years Without a Break

After 41 years of never really stopping, Dr. Dre is finally ready to stop — for a little while, at least. The legendary producer revealed on the debut episode of Ice Cube and Mike Epps’ new podcast, Listen & Laugh, that he plans to step away from music and disappear for a while.

“For the first time in my entire adult career, I’m going to take a break from that,” Dre said on the show, which premiered Friday. “I’m going to go away, and I’m going to get off the grid for a year or two and come back.”

Dre, who started making music back in 1984 with the World Class Wreckin’ Cru, explained that his mind has never really left the studio — even when he’s not in it. Everything he sees, he said, reminds him of music in some way: storefronts, bumper stickers, anything that could spark an idea for the next session. “You never leave it,” he said. “Even when you’re outside of the studio, you’re looking at storefronts or bumper stickers or some s—t like that, that could give you an idea for the next time that you go in the studio. So, you’re never away from it. You’re always tethered to this thing and for the first time in my life, I won’t be. What if there’s something else waiting for me that could give me the same exact feeling when I discovered music?”

Don’t start the countdown just yet, though — the break isn’t immediate. Dre said he has roughly two months left in the studio, and he plans to finish two projects before he steps away, including one alongside Houston rapper Marqus Clae. And in the same conversation, he dropped another stunner: by his own count, fans have only heard about 20 percent of the music he’s made. “Maybe 80 percent of the music I’ve done, nobody has heard,” he said, pointing to a vault of unreleased material built up over four decades.

It’s a remarkable admission from a man whose fingerprints are on damn near every era of modern hip-hop — from N.W.A. and Death Row to Aftermath, Eminem, 50 Cent, Kendrick Lamar, and that Super Bowl LVI halftime show with Snoop Dogg. Just last week, Dre and Ice Cube were also opening up about how hard it was to get the Straight Outta Compton biopic made at all. Now Dre is talking about what comes after the music — and for the first time, he’s genuinely excited to find out.

If Dre really does go quiet for a year or two, what do you want to hear from the vault first? Let us know in the comments, and keep the requests coming at 302-357-9831.

Source: HotNewHipHop