Dr. Dre says 80% of his music has never been heard. Now he is leaving the studio for a year or two.

Dr. Dre says nobody has heard “maybe 80 percent of the music I’ve done.” In about two months, after 41 years of working in studios, he plans to disappear for a year or two.

The producer made the announcement on Listen & Laugh, the new podcast from Ice Cube and Mike Epps that debuted Friday, Nov. 6. “For the first time in my adult career, I’m going to take a break from that,” he said. “I’m going to go away, and I’m going to get off the grid for a year or two.”

Before he goes, he says he will finish two projects. One is a collaboration with Marqus Clae, a Houston-based artist. He gave no other details.

Dre did not describe the break as a retirement. “You never leave it,” he said. “Even when you’re not there.” He also said he wants to find out whether anything else can give him what music did. “What if there’s something else waiting for me that could give me the same exact feeling when I discovered music?”

A vault, and a question about who hears it

The number that stands out is the one about the vault. Dre said “only 20 percent of the music I’ve done” has come out, and that he has “this incredible vault of a lot of music and a lot of ideas.” He has previously said he recorded 247 songs during the COVID-19 pandemic alone, and his last solo studio album, Compton, came out in 2015.

That is a lot of Black music from one of the most influential producers alive, sitting unheard. Dre has the standing to release it on his own terms, and that standing was earned. He started in the studio in 1985, and the Compton sound he helped build, from N.W.A to the West Coast records that followed, became one of the best-known sounds in American music.

He also said he is “extremely excited” about artificial intelligence in music and film. Artists have argued over who owns the recordings that AI systems learn from, and whether the people who made them are paid. Dre did not address that in the comments reported so far, and he is better placed than almost anyone to say where he stands on it.

The break is the news, but the vault is the story. Fans have waited more than a decade for a new solo album, and he says most of what he has made has never reached them. Dre says he has about two months left before he goes, and the music he finishes in that time will be what they have to live on.