Todd Terry was born in Brooklyn and began DJing in the ‘80s while still a teen (his venues includes school events and a crew that deemed themselves the Scooby Doo Crew). When Chicago's house music found a network in New York, Terry jumped on the bandwagon and began creating riffs that matched those veteran house disc jockeys from the windy city. His first big hit came from DJ masters Little Loie Vegas and Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez, who popularized a Masters at Work image. The single, "Alright Alright" was one of the first big house scene hits and led Terry to gigs outside of the school yard. The Jungle Brothers, a group of soon-to-be-house legends, hired Terry for some production work and the team created "I'll House You," the first mainstream fusion of house and hip-hop.

Under his own name (the Todd Terry Project) came the hits "Weekend" and "Bango (To the Batmobile)." This was one of the few times that Terry used his own name, as he usually went for pseudonyms when he began producing work for hot dance groups, like Black Riot, Gypsymen, Sound Design and Static. He continued to remix as well for Sting, Bjork, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner and Robert Planet, among others, as his house music began to boom across the ocean and into UK's nightclubs. At this point, both critics and fans were deeming Terry the "God" of house music.

Terry formed his own label, Freeze Records, in 1992 with William Socolov. The record label allowed Terry to produce everything on his own, and before long he had released his own EP, Unreleased Projected that was a continuous series from 1992 to 1995. In 1995 his "Everything but the Girl" single became another smash hit and he returned with more albums, including some live compilations from UK performances.