Alexey Marti was born in Havana, Cuba, and began playing percussion as a preschooler, performing congas at his grandmother's house for the family's Santería religious ceremonies. By his early teens, Marti was taking formal lessons from Oscar Valdés, a neighbor and founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Cuban group Irakere. Marti moved to New Orleans in December 2008, at a time when the city's Afro-Cuban music scene was still relatively young, and began studying jazz composition at the University of New Orleans under Victor "Red" Atkins III and Ed Petersen.
Since settling in New Orleans, Marti has become a regular presence at venues including Snug Harbor and a member of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. He has performed and recorded with an extensive list of the city's finest musicians, including Herlin Riley and percussionist Bill Summers, both of whom he considers paternal figures, alongside Davell Crawford, Delfeayo Marsalis, Adonis Rose, Jason Marsalis, and Big Sam of Funky Nation. His career has also expanded into film and television, including work as a percussionist on the TV series Roots (2016) and as composer for the documentaries Chasing Dreams: A Leah Chase Story and Código Color Memorias.
Marti has released several albums, including Travesia (2017) and Mundo (2019), and describes his artistic mission as being a cultural bridge between his training in Havana and the rhythmic traditions of Black American culture. His ensemble, Sugarflow, has been a featured regular at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since 2009, blending Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz, R&B, and the city's own musical heritage into a sound Marti calls a form of "musical anthropology."
