Dr. Dre Says He’s Going ‘Off the Grid’ for the First Time in His Career: ‘I’m Going to Go Away’

Dr. Dre is finally taking a break. The legendary producer synonymous with West Coast rap music has essentially been in the studio either physically or mentally every day since he started his career with the World Class Wrecking Crew in 1984. But he sat down with Ice Cube and Mike Epps for their new podcast Listen and Laugh, and revealed that he may be taking a break from making music for the first time in a long time.

“For the first time in my entire adult career, I’m going to take a break from that,” he said on the Nov. 6 episode when talking about his work process. “I’m going to go away, and I’m going to get off the grid for a year or two and come back.”

Adding that he was always thinking about making music even when he wasn’t in the studio. “You never leave it,” he continued. “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?”

Elsewhere in the interview, he double down on his stance on AI.

“I’m extremely excited about AI,” he said. “I love it. I love the potential of it. I love the idea of where it could possibly go, you know, with music, with film. Like, what happens if someone says, ‘I’m going to pay you to be in my movie.’ Right. You don’t even have to be there, but you get to approve what they do. It’s your image and your voice. What’s wrong with that? It’s just a whole new level of creativity.”

Back in August, he told The New York Times that he sees the new technology as being a “new tool for creativity.”

“I had a discussion with a few people a few days ago,” he said. “They were against AI and I’m like, ‘OK, you sound like the person that would have been against the drum machine when it came out.’ Or synthesizers, right? It’s a new tool for creativity. Some people are afraid of learning new things.”