Terrace Jamahl Martin was born in Los Angeles on December 28, 1978. His father, Ernest "Curly" Martin, is a jazz drummer from Nebraska who was inducted into the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame, and his mother is a singer. He has said his father played John Coltrane every day and that his parents played whatever comforted them without sorting it by genre. He grew up in South Los Angeles and later named his label Sounds of Crenshaw after the district. He began piano at six, made his first tracks at 13 on a Casio CZ-101 keyboard and an E-mu SP-1200 sampler, and taught himself the saxophone at about the same age.

At Locke High School he studied under the bandleader and educator Reggie Andrews, whose after-school jazz ensembles also drew Kamasi Washington, the bassist Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner and the drummer Ronald Bruner Jr. (the Bruners are his cousins), and he rose to first chair in the California All-State Honors Jazz Band. He met the alto saxophonist Jackie McLean as a teenager through the drummer Billy Higgins, and he played in Higgins's World Stage All-Stars, the house band of the World Stage club in Leimert Park. Kevin Eubanks of the Tonight Show band heard him play, and the host Jay Leno gave him a scholarship and later bought his first professional horn. He briefly attended CalArts, then left to tour with Puff Daddy and the gospel choir God's Property, and he also worked with the gospel singer Kirk Franklin.

His production career began in 2004 with credits for the group 213 and the rapper Shawnna, and a radio drop he made for Snoop Dogg at Power 106 led to a long association with Snoop. He has credits on Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006) and Ego Trippin' (2008), where "Neva Have 2 Worry" was his first production credit on a single, and he has said he led Snoop's live band from 2011. He signed with Warner Bros. in 2007. The mixtapes Signal Flow (2007) and Locke High (2008, hosted by Snoop and DJ Drama), the Devi Dev collaboration Here, My Dear (2010) and the Murs album Are Melrose (2011) present him as a rapper, singer and beatmaker. Credits on records by YG, Travis Scott, Big K.R.I.T., Busta Rhymes, Talib Kweli and Stevie Wonder followed.

The credits that changed how jazz listeners saw him came through Kendrick Lamar, whom he has known since 2005. Martin co-produced "m.A.A.d city" and produced "Real" on good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012), then co-produced several tracks on To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), among them "King Kunta," "These Walls," "Complexion (A Zulu Love)" and "The Blacker the Berry." He brought Washington in to write string arrangements and play saxophone on that album, a connection he says led to Washington's own The Epic. Grammy.com credits him with the Album of the Year nominations for both Kendrick records. He later co-produced "Loyalty" on DAMN. (2017) and is credited as an additional producer on "Dodger Blue" from GNX (2024).

As a leader he began pairing hip-hop production with jazz players. 3ChordFold (Empire, 2013) put Robert Glasper, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg and Lalah Hathaway on one record and became his first solo release to chart, at No. 43 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Martin also co-produced "Persevere" with Glasper on the Robert Glasper Experiment's Black Radio 2 (2013). Velvet Portraits (Sounds of Crenshaw / Ropeadope, April 1, 2016) was recorded in Los Angeles and Omaha with Glasper, Washington, Thundercat, Lalah Hathaway, the vocal group The Emotions and his father on drums. It reached No. 2 on Billboard's Jazz Albums chart, topped the Contemporary Jazz chart, and was nominated for the Grammy for Best R&B Album, an R&B category rather than a jazz one. Sounds of Crenshaw Vol. 1 (July 14, 2017), credited to The Pollyseeds with Martin presenting, entered the jazz chart at No. 3 and topped the contemporary jazz chart.

In August 2016 Herbie Hancock told NPR and WBGO that he and Martin were working together almost every day, and that Martin was playing alto saxophone, keyboards and vocoder in his new band. Martin toured in that band in 2016 and 2017, alongside the drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, the bassist James Genus and, on the early dates, the guitarist Lionel Loueke. He also took part in Glasper's group R+R=NOW, whose debut Collagically Speaking (Blue Note, June 15, 2018) was recorded at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles with the trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, the bassist Derrick Hodge, the drummer Justin Tyson and the keyboardist Taylor McFerrin. Martin played synthesizer, used the vocoder on several tracks and played saxophone on one. The album topped Billboard's Top Jazz Albums and Contemporary Jazz Albums charts.

Dinner Party grew from the same circle. Martin and Glasper came up with the idea in 2019 while touring in London, and the group, with Washington and the producer 9th Wonder, announced itself on June 25, 2020. The self-titled EP followed on July 10, 2020, recorded at Chalice Recording Studios in Los Angeles with Martin producing every track and playing alto saxophone on six of the seven, and it debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. The remix EP Dinner Party: Dessert (October 9, 2020) was nominated at the 64th Grammy Awards for Best Progressive R&B Album, and Enigmatic Society followed on April 14, 2023. Drones (Sounds of Crenshaw / BMG, November 5, 2021) grew out of a conversation with Lamar about a society growing numb. Its guests include Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Washington, Glasper and Leon Bridges, and it earned a Best Progressive R&B Album nomination at the 65th Grammy Awards.

Martin then released Fine Tune (June 30, 2023), which AllMusic described as breezier and more jazz-rooted than Drones and which includes the harpist Brandee Younger and Hodge on a version of H.E.R.'s "Damage"; Curly (July 28, 2023), made in the spirit of his father; Nova with the singer James Fauntleroy (August 25, 2023), nominated for Best Progressive R&B Album; I Left My Heart in Ladera with the singer Alex Isley (October 20, 2023); and The Near North Side with the guitarist Calvin Keys (November 17, 2023). Come As You Are with the singer Kenyon Dixon (June 20, 2025) was nominated for Best Progressive R&B Album at the 68th Grammy Awards, and their song "WeMaj," with the rapper Rapsody, was nominated for Best Melodic Rap Performance. Grammy.com lists eight nominations and no wins for him as of October 2026.

In 2026 he issued Love Is Louder Than Algorithms, a four-album instrumental suite marking ten years of Sounds of Crenshaw, as Passion (January 30), Peace (February 13), Purpose with the drummer Marcus Gilmore (March 6) and Perspective (March 20). Dinner Party's Whatchu Bringing? followed on August 7, 2026, nine tracks in about 25 minutes, and an instrumental edition, Ingredients, arrived on October 16, 2026.

Martin works in two worlds and does not pretend they are one. Most of his public credits, and nearly all of his commercial ones, are in hip-hop and R&B production, and his own records are as likely to be filed under R&B or soul as under jazz, as the category of the Grammy nomination for Velvet Portraits shows. The jazz side is documented rather than assumed: a jazz education at Locke High and a first chair in the all-state honors band, an apprenticeship in the Billy Higgins circle at the World Stage, a place in Hancock's touring band, a Blue Note album with R+R=NOW, a duo record with the veteran guitarist Calvin Keys, and several releases that reached the top of Billboard's jazz charts. He describes his approach as linking hip-hop and jazz rather than choosing between them.

His saxophone models are alto players: Charlie Parker, Jackie McLean and Coltrane, with Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt, Hancock and Grover Washington Jr. also named among his role models, next to Dr. Dre, DJ Quik, DJ Premier and Pete Rock. On records such as Velvet Portraits and Sounds of Crenshaw Vol. 1 his alto saxophone, synthesizers and vocoder sit over drum-machine and keyboard grooves, and the vocoder ties him to the 1970s Hancock he later played beside. He has called himself a musician who succeeds by assembling strong collaborators rather than by being the best player in the room. Critics have been warm but divided about the results. Pitchfork said the subtle ambition of Sounds of Crenshaw Vol. 1 becomes impossible to miss, while The Guardian found parts of it soporific, and Enigmatic Society drew reviews that ranged from Clash's glowing praise to The Wire's dismissal.