The French singer commonly known as Matt Pokora or M. Pokora, was born Matthieu Totta on September 26th, 1985. He grew up near Strasbourg in France. As a child Matt was more interested in music than school, and spent much of his time in class writing songs rather than school papers.
He started his first band as a teenager, a French R&B and rap group, Mic Unity. As a member of Mic Unity he began to gain public attention and affection, however he did not gain fame until a 2003 stint on the French reality tv singing competition "Popstars." While competing on Popstars Matthieu became a crowd favorite and he formed a boy band, Linkup with fellow PopStar competitors Lionel and Otis. Matthieu was the charismatic lead singer of Linkup, singing lead vocals on the band's debut album "Notre Etoile" (Our Star). The band found great success with their first single, "Mon Etoile" (My Star), which rocketed to the top of the French Pop Charts. However, the band's following single, Une seconde d'eternite (One second of eternity) was not nearly as successful and the albums sales lagged, despite selling ultimately over 200,000 copies. Eventually, Linkup decided to disband, sending its members on various paths.
After the failure of Linkup, Matthieu decided to strike out as a solo artist in 2004, under the name Matt Pokora. He released his first solo album, the self titled "Matt Pokora" in October 2004. His first solo album was a great success, with it's second single Elle me controle receiving two NRJ Music Awards, including "Francophone Song of The Year" and "Music Video of The Year." In 2005, facing a suit from French R&B Matt Houston, Matt Pokora was forced to change his stage name to M. Pokora. As a result, he re-released the album under the M. Pokora and found another wave of successs with the album and singles 'Elle Me Controle" and "Pas San Toi" (with Tyron Carter). Charts.
In late 2005, M. Pokora returned to the studio to record his second solo album, "Player" which he released in January 2006. The album also found great success, with a March re-release which included a bonus track, "It's Alright" -- a duet with Ricky Martin. The album also featured "Oh" which was remixed by Ciara. The album went on to top the French Billboard In 2007, M. Pokora was named the Francophone Male Artist of the Year at the NRJ awards and again won the award for "Music Video Of The Year."
M. Pakora released his third solo album "MP3" on March24, 2008. On the album M. Pokora was joined by numerous high profile American producers including Timbaland and Ryan Leslie. Unlike his previously released albums, 12 of the 14 songs on MP3 are in English, rather than his native language of French. In 2008, Pokora returned to the NRJ where he had previously won numerous awards to perform with other international stars such as Rihanna, James Blunt, and Tokio Hotel.