Aziz Ansari was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to a Tamil Muslim family from Tamil Nadu, India. Ansari grew up in Bennettsville, South Carolina, where he attended Marlboro Academy as well as the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics. He graduated from the New York University Stern School of Business in 2004, with a Bachelor of Business degree in marketing. His mother, Fatima, is an obstetrician and gynecologist and his father, Shoukath, is a gastroenterologist. Both of his parents have appeared in the two seasons of Master of None.

Ansari frequently performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, as well as weekly shows such as Invite Them Up. In 2005, Rolling Stone included him in their annual “Hot List” as their choice for the “Hot Standup”, and he won the Jury Award for “Best Standup” at HBO’s 2006 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado.

Ansari tours as a stand-up comedian. In 2006 and 2007, he toured with the Comedians of Comedy and Flight of the Conchords. In late 2008 and early 2009, his own comedy tour, the Glow in the Dark Tour, became the basis for a DVD/CD special for Comedy Central. The set, titled Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, aired January 17, 2010.

In June 2008, Ansari was announced as the first cast hire for NBC’s comedy Parks and Recreation. The show debuted in April 2009 with Ansari playing one of the main characters, Tom Haverford, for the show’s seven seasons. Ansari’s performance was praised by critics, including Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, and Yahoo! TV, which placed him in the No. 1 spot on its list of “TV MVPS”.

Ansari has made appearances in several films, including Get Him to the Greek, I Love You, Man, 30 Minutes or Less, This Is the End, and Observe and Report. In 2009, Ansari appeared in the Judd Apatow film Funny People. Apatow liked Ansari’s character, “Randy”, and commissioned him and Human Giant collaborator Jason Woliner to create online shorts centered around his character, to promote the film. These shorts proved successful and the character became the subject of one of the film ideas Ansari and Woliner are developing for Apatow Productions. Two other ideas in development are Let’s Do This, a road movie about two motivational speakers, and an untitled film about two disgraced astronauts who must return to space to clear their names. Ansari is attached to star in another film with Danny McBride based on an idea from Ansari and 30 Rock writer Matt Hubbard. In April 2010, it was announced that Ansari would star in the film 30 Minutes or Less. The film was directed by Ruben Fleischer and co-starred Jesse Eisenberg and McBride. The film was released on August 12, 2011.

In July 2010, Ansari began a new tour, Dangerously Delicious, which was in theaters across the United States; stops included the Bonnaroo Music Festival and Carnegie Hall in New York City. The tour wrapped with a filming for a special, Dangerously Delicious at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., in June 2011. This special was released on his website in March 2012 for download or stream.

In August 2011, Ansari made a cameo appearance in the music video for “Otis” by Jay-Z and Kanye West from their collaborative album Watch the Throne.

In March 2012, Ansari announced a new tour entitled “Buried Alive”, with dates scheduled for Q2/Q3 2012. A third stand-up special, Aziz Ansari: Buried Alive, was filmed during the tour at the Merriam Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and premiered on Netflix on November 1, 2013. His 2015 special, Aziz Ansari: Live at Madison Square Garden, also premiered on Netflix.

In 2014 he self-identified as a feminist, saying his girlfriend has helped influence him. Ansari also incorporated an episode about feminism titled “Ladies and Gentlemen” in Master of None. In an interview in 2015, he spoke about the episode’s meaningfulness to him saying “I thought it was interesting that this is happening, yet so many people are unaware of it. And the problem is people aren’t talking about it. What I’ve learned, as a guy, is to just ask women questions and listen to what they have to say. Go to your group of female friends and ask them about times they’ve experienced sexism at their job, and you’ll get blown away by the things they tell you.”

Starting in November, 2015, Ansari starred as Dev Shah in the Netflix original series Master of None, which he created and wrote with Parks and Recreation writer Alan Yang. James Poniewozik of The New York Times called the show “the year’s best comedy straight out of the gate” and praised its genre-crossing appeal. The show ran for two seasons.

Ansari’s book, Modern Romance: An Investigation, was released on June 16, 2015. The book is about the comedic pitfalls of dating in the modern world and was written with sociologist Eric Klinenberg.

Ansari’s performance in the show earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy. The series earned four Emmy nominations in 2016: Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Ansari and Yang, and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Ansari; Yang and Ansari won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for the episode “Parents”. Yang and Ansari were also honored with a Peabody Award in May 2016 for the series.

In 2016, Ansari was the recipient of Smithsonian Magazine’s American Ingenuity Award for Performing Arts. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked Aziz Ansari 49th in their list of greatest stand-up comedians of all time.

In 2018 Ansari won a Golden Globe for best actor in a TV comedy for the show; this made him the first Asian-American actor to win a Golden Globe for acting in television.

Ansari purchased an apartment in Tribeca in 2018 that had previously been owned by New York Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh.

In January 2018, a woman using the pseudonym “Grace” accused Ansari of sexual misconduct in an article on Babe.net, a website that was aimed at Milennial and Gen-Z readers. According to the article, the woman later texted Ansari expressing her discomfort, and he replied to her with an apology.

In February 2019, Ansari began a new stand-up tour entitled The Road to Nowhere, which was his official public return after the sexual-misconduct allegations and media backlash that put his career on a year-long hiatus in 2018. The performance was a response to the events of that past year, and touched on topics ranging from cultural appropriation, racism to sexual misconduct. His next comedy special Aziz Ansari: Right Now was released on July 9, 2019.

In May 2019, Ansari teamed up with Dave Chappelle for three shows in Austin, Texas at the Paramount Theatre.