Garcia was born in 1991 in Camden Town, London, the youngest of four siblings, to a Guyanese mother, a former civil servant, and a British Trinidadian filmmaker father.

[1] Garcia followed her three older siblings to the local Camden Saturday Music Centre at the age of five, where she first learned the violin and later played the viola in the London Schools Symphony Orchestra (LSSO).

She attended youth music workshops at the Roundhouse in Camden and also Tomorrow's Warriors under the direction of Gary Crosby.

[28] Nubya Garcia debuted her band on 18 August at the 2021 BBC Proms held in London's Royal Albert Hall.

[29][30] On 15 September 2023, at the Royal Festival Hall, Garcia performed with the Nu Civilisation Orchestra (NCO) their exploration of Stan Getz's 1962 album Focus, in a well-reviewed concert.

[36][37] Garcia has cited the prominent jazz saxophonists Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, as well as trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist-composer Mary Lou Williams, as her "musical heroes".