*Dr. Dre is stepping away from music. The producer and former N.W.A member says he plans to disappear for a year or two, his first real break since his career began.
He shared the plan on the Nov. 6 premiere of “Listen & Laugh,” the new podcast hosted by Ice Cube and Mike Epps, Billboard reports. The reason is simple. Dre says music has followed him everywhere for decades, and he wants to know what life feels like without it.
“You’re always tethered to this thing and for the first time in my life, I won’t be,” he said. “What if there’s something else waiting for me that could give me the same exact feeling when I discovered music?”
Even away from the studio, he explained, a storefront or a bumper sticker could spark an idea for his next session. “For the first time in my entire adult career, I’m going to take a break from that,” Dre said. “I’m going to go away, and I’m going to get off the grid for a year or two and come back.”
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The timing is notable for Ice Cube, his former N.W.A groupmate. As EURweb previously reported, Cube told Complex he would welcome a group reunion, but only with Dre producing.
“If he feel like doing it, we do it. If he don’t, we don’t,” Cube said. “Nobody wants a N.W.A song without Dr. Dre’s production.”
Cube also hopes Dre will produce a song for the soundtrack of his upcoming film “Last Friday.” Neither collaboration is locked in, and Dre’s planned time away adds a new question mark.
One thing Dre is not walking away from is his enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. During the same conversation, he imagined performers licensing their image and voice for films while keeping approval.
“I’m extremely excited about AI,” he said. “I love it. I love the potential of it.”
He called the technology “a whole new level of creativity.”
He made a similar case in August, telling The New York Times that critics of AI remind him of people who resisted drum machines and synthesizers.
“It’s a new tool for creativity,” he said. “Some people are afraid of learning new things.”
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