Nasheet Waits was born June 15, 1971, in New York City and raised in the Westbeth artists' community in Lower Manhattan, the son of famous percussionist Freddie Waits, who encouraged his early playing and introduced him to many of the great musicians who shaped his education. He majored in psychology and history at Morehouse College in Atlanta, but turned to music as a career following his father's death in 1989, completing his studies with honors at Long Island University, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Music.

Drummer and bandleader Max Roach, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile, gave Waits his professional start in his M'Boom percussion ensemble, in which his father had also played. Saxophonist Antonio Hart then hired him for his first quintet, and Waits recorded three albums and toured internationally with Hart until 1998. He went on to work with pianist Fred Hersch, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile, bassist Eddie Gomez, and saxophonist David Murray, and became an originating member of pianist Jason Moran's Bandwagon trio, deemed "the most exciting rhythm section in jazz" by JazzTimes. He also appeared on bassist Joe Martin's album Étoilée, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile.

Waits has recorded two albums as a leader: Equality (2008, Fresh Sound) and Between Nothingness and Infinity (2016, Laborie). His extensive collaborations also include work with Andrew Hill, Christian McBride, Jackie McLean, and Dave Douglas, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile.

Waits's direct lineage through his father's generation of drummers, combined with his own restless work across Jason Moran's Bandwagon and a wide range of post-bop and avant-garde contexts, established him as one of the most consistently in-demand drummers of the contemporary New York jazz scene.