Matthew Toma was never going to fit into one box. Born in Orange County and raised in Los Angeles, he grew up between two cultures, two ways of moving through the world — with his mother being Japanese and his father African American. They had gone their separate ways before he was born, but both were dancers, both storytellers in their own right. He inherited something from each of them separately, and spent his life figuring out how to bring it together.
Music was his first medium. He signed with a major label as a solo artist, but like so many artists of that era, found himself shelved — caught in the slow machinery of a major label. Rather than keep waiting, he parted ways and started listening for something else.
That something else was Japan. In 2014 he performed at Tokyo’s Trump Room for the first time, and something clicked. By 2017 he had relocated, signing with a Japanese studio and landing placements with Jin Akanishi and CRAZYBOY/ELLY of EXILE in his first projects as a songwriter and producer. More placements followed, more artists, more trust from an industry that doesn’t give it easily to outsiders.
When the pandemic brought him back to California, he didn’t slow down. He produced Japanese Night at Soho House LA, then City Pop Night at the Fonda Theatre — the first Japanese Government-funded concert ever held in America, with Night Tempo headlining and Japan Airlines as sponsor. In 2024 he organized and managed Night Tempo’s first US Tour, as well as curating side events across multiple cities along the way.
Around the same time, his web3 project Hachi Mugen found an audience he hadn’t expected — over one million collectors worldwide, with support flowing in from the Solana blockchain platform DRiP.
In 2025 he wrote and produced his first short film, HISASHIBURI, set for release in 2026. It’s his latest act of storytelling and maybe his most personal. Every chapter has been a different medium. The story has always been the same.