Terrace Martin Talks About Collaborating With Kendrick Lamar And TDE, Being A Multi-Instrumentalist, The Great Robert Glasper, And Gangbanging Fact Vs. Fiction

To call Terrace Martin a musician feels like an understatement. His musical tastes and talents range so widely and his list of collaborators is so vast, it feels like there should be a whole other word for it.

This is a man who has worked with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Snoop and Kendrick Lamar to Kamasi Washington. He plays multiple instruments and explores music in a way that feels radical, inventive, and fun. He crosses genres with ease and remixes concepts in a way that always keeps fans guessing. 

In this deeply thoughtful and seriously impactful conversation, Martin talks to Talib Kweli and Jasmin Leigh about his early days as a producer, his biggest collaborations and musical influences, and his experience growing up in South Central. It’s a true hip-hop conversation, in the sense that all music has a place in hip-hop — jazz, rock, funk, etc — and Martin is perhaps the best possible person to unpack that for the listener.