Los Angeles-born musician and producer Terrace Martin remembers being at the White House. It was near the end of former President Obama’s final term in office and he’d been invited to dinner with the POTUS, Michelle, and a few other folks, including musicians Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, and Chick Corea. At one point Glasper introduced Martin to Barack and told him Martin was the one who produced Kendrick Lamar’s 2018 song, “How Much a Dollar Cost.” It was then Barack called over to Michelle from across the room, expressing joy, wanting to share it. Barack told Martin how he’s used that song in dialogue with his political colleagues to elucidate to them more clearly the Black American experience. These are the moments, Martin says, that he lives for. This is the purpose he pours into his music, and the artist’s latest example, Drones, which features names like Lamar, SZA, Snoop Dogg, Leon Bridges, and Ty Dolla Sign, is out Friday (November 5).
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“My thing,” Martin says. “That’s what I’m doing.”
It’s not about the music, for Martin, per sé. Instead, it’s about building tools for better lives. Martin talks about seeing videos at the height of political protests in 2015 and beyond, where songs he’s been a crucial part of, like Lamar’s now-timeless song “Alright,” have somehow prevented people from deep harm. At the moment, he says, he knew the masses could have overtaken the moment but when “Alright” hit, cooler heads prevailed and lives were likely saved.
“I do it for the people,” Martin says, “who don’t do music. The people who work hard every fucking day. The trash collector, the gardener, the principal, the counselor, the therapist, first responders, the police officers who do have a heart and who do know right from wrong. I care about people living and being joyful.”
Martin, who is one of the four members of the instrumental supergroup Dinner Party—along with Glasper, producer 9th Wonder, and Kamasi Washington—is, in his own way, at the center of modern music’s evolution. Call it jazz, call it music, whatever it is there are pockets of loud debate about what it could or should be. But for Martin, those conversations are ancillary at best, detrimental at worst. Focus instead, he says, on the people who need the music. And how music can be the proverbial hammer with which one can build a better life.
“When you do music for musicians, they don’t pay to get into the fucking club,” Martin says, adding a laugh. He continues, getting more serious, “There’s so much lack of love [in the world] that I don’t got time to be thinking about musicians.” He adds, “If I can help heal or give somebody the tools to heal themselves, like Quincy [Jones], like Herbie, like Dr. Dre, Snoop, Battlecat—just like everybody who gave me my tools to help me heal myself.”
The 42-year-old Martin says that it wasn’t until 30 that he learned to “shut the fuck up.” The artist had always listened to music and had long made it, but, he notes, he didn’t understand the concept of hearing music (or the world, or himself) acutely until beginning his fourth decade. In fact the final track on Drones, “Listen,” is all about that: active listening, or searching for meaning in what you hear, not just passively letting wash over you amidst some stagnant stone-minded stasis. Similarly, the album’s opening track, “Turning Poison Into Medicine,” deals with transformations, this idea of finding beauty even in the most difficult.
“For me,” Martin says, “the beauty during the pandemic was getting back to the person who you can trust, which is yourself. It helped me deal with accountability, this whole album is structured on accountability, compassion, responsibility, and truth.”
Hancock, who Martin says has “more power than Yoda,” has been a guiding light for Martin, and others in his sphere of creative-minded thinkers. In a time of tumult, it’s important to have at least a few sturdy touchstones.
“Our problems aren’t black and white,” Martin says, “our problems are hate versus love.”
Martin says the crux of this issue is what he puts into his songs. As an artist, he is like an “open sore” to the world, taking it all in, even at times when he wished he could close himself off. Even when the videos on the news depict the most gruesome of acts. As an artist, Martin says, he must remain open to the worst parts, the most hateful, because that’s how one is able to build things to combat it. This is why he isn’t concerned with some numinous sense of “jazz” or magazine ranking of the best producers.
“We’re in the era where perception is the new truth,” Martin says, lamenting. “We’re all caught up in this, everybody is.” He adds, “We were able to see so many people die on the fucking phone, bro. That’s a real deep thing if you think about it.”
Martin’s new album coalesced around the idea that people are being controlled by the things we keep closest at hand—controlled by things that do not breathe. As such, there is a prevailing sense of emptiness and, Martin says, his music is an attempt to fill that. For the artist, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, people interacting together was a major foundational aspect of his life. He had loving parents. Yes, times could be tough and yes there was violence in the atmosphere, but there was also love and respect. At first, Martin got caught up in the former, praising his ego, he says. Then he found humility, and an ear to listen with.
“I don’t believe you can get to a certain place and not go through [difficult times],” Martin says. “Music helped me throughout my life but music is not really what saved my life. What saved my life was humbling myself.” He adds, “I found out the secret to being happy forever: even through the darkest times, you have to give, give, give. That’s better than being vegan.”
(Photo by Samantha Whitehead, courtesy of Biz3 Publicity)
