Matthieu Tota (born 26 September 1985), artistically known as Matt Pokora and later M. Pokora , is a French pop and R&B singer. In 2016, he became a coach for The Voice Kids France and The Voice: la plus belle voix. Matthieu Tota is the son of professional footballer André Tota and Brigitte. His parents divorced in 1998 when he was 13 years old. As a child, he studied in an elementary school in Hohberg, and later at Collège Paul-Émile Victor in Mundolsheim, and Lycée Aristide Briand in Schiltigheim near Strasbourg. When he was younger, football was his first ambition and he wanted to become a professional player. However, he later opted for music.

Matthieu Tota explained the origin of his stage name Matt Pokora in an interview during the documentary Mise à jour broadcast on 26 August 2010 on NRJ 12 TV channel. He said he was searching for an artistic name and happened to be talking to his grandmother of Polish origin and the importance of humility came up. He asked her “how do we say ‘humility’ in Polish”, and she said “pokora”. Tota immediately decided to adopt the word as his stage name. He earned some public attention as a member of French R&B group Mic Unity. He is also referred to the “French prince of crunk music”. In the fall of 2003, he participated in the third season of Popstars, a French talent reality television show broadcast on M6.

The concept of the program was to present possible candidates the winners of which would take part in the formation of a boy band or girl band. He was a crowd and jury favourite, and became a member of a boy band called Linkup formed with Lionel and Otis, two other winners in 2003 Popstars. The female winners were formed into another group Diadems formed of Marylore, Angel, Pookie, Ophélie and Alexandra. In the final showdown, the boy band including Matthieu Tota won the series over the girl band Diadems, who ended up runners-up.

Their first Linkup single “Mon Étoile” was very successful topping French charts, and the debut album Notre Étoile was moderately successful. However the second single release “Une seconde d’éternité” was much less successful despite good sales. The band tried again their hand in a collaboration with the British boy band Blue making a bilingual English/French version with Blue based on the latter’s song “Bubblin'”. The bilingual English/French Blue/Linkup version was entitled “You & Me Bubblin”. Soon afterwards, Linkup disbanded due to poor performance of sales on releases.

In 2004, soon after the break-up of Linkup, Matthieu started working preparing for a solo career collaborating with the producers Kore & Skalp. Under the stage name Matt Pokora, he released his first eponymous solo album originally entitled Matt Pokora. In 2005, he was forced to change his chosen name after a lawsuit from French R&B singer Matt Houston. As a result, he changed his stage name to M. Pokora and re-released the album as M. Pokora.

The debut single from M. Pokora was very successful. Called “Showbiz (The Battle)”, it was a Top 10 hit in France, and also charted in Belgium and Switzerland. The second single Elle me contrôle featuring Sweety reached #6 in France and Pokora received two NRJ Music Awards for the single. Yet a third successful single was released called “Pas sans toi”. The album released on Universal was certified gold.

He also started collaborating with Hakim Ghorab who became his long-time choreographer and took part in many of his music videos. He also developed a close collaboration with music video director Karim Ouaret who directed most of his successful videos. In January 2006, his second album Player was released topping the French chart. For producing the new album, he collaborated with Belgian producers Bionix, Rachid Mir and Christian Dessart and artists Red Rat and Zoxea and geared toward the younger and feminine fan brackets. He also enjoyed great popularity with gay audiences. The first single from his second album was the very successful “De retour” featuring Tyron Carter. That was followed with single “Oh la la la (Sexy Miss)” with Red Rat.

During a concert organized by NRJ Radio in France, he met Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin and Martin asked M. Pokora to make a collaboration on Martin’s hit “It’s Alright”. The result was a bilingual French/English Ricky Martin/M. Pokora release also entitled “It’s Alright” that sold more than 100,000 copies. Finally, a last single from the Player album followed called “Mal de guerre”, which was a relative success. M. Pokora released Player in a second edition in March 2006 with the bonus track added of the duet with Ricky Martin.

To promote the album and capitalize on its success, M. Pokora engaged in a tour of more than 30 French venues under the title Player Tour that culminated in a big sold-out concert at Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. At the end of the tour, a DVD containing materials from the shows was marketed under the name Player Tour Live. The DVD also included a photo book and memories from the tour. Pokora also created his own label M2theP Entertainment, signing his protégé, the rapper Tyron Carter. In addition to being featured on “De retour”, Tyron Carter released “Ne me dis pas” that featured M. Pokora, a Top 30 hit, followed by an album Mon hold-up.