Mattia Barbieri was born on February 25, 1978, in Pinerolo, a town near Turin in Piedmont. After two years on classical guitar he switched to drums at seven, studying with Turin-area teachers including Daniele Bianciotto, Enzo Zirilli, Aldo Mella and Andrea Ajassot, and later classical percussion at Turin's Istituto Civico Musicale. He began performing professionally at fifteen with dance orchestras, jazz groups and cover bands. His formal jazz training culminated in a degree from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Turin, awarded with full marks (110 out of 110), and he attended Siena Jazz's summer courses from 1997 to 1999, where he took masterclasses with Roy Haynes and Elvin Jones. Drum educator Gary Chaffee awarded him a scholarship to the New England Conservatory in Boston.

In 1999 he joined bassist Andrea Allione's trio, and in 2000 he became part of the European Youth Orchestra directed by Furio Di Castri, touring to Palestine and later Sarajevo. The following years mixed pop and jazz work: a 2001-2002 recording, Bianco Shock, for Mecal/Sony, a tour with the group Monovox, sessions with the group Mao and the Revolution, and a session at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Bath, England. In 2003 and 2004 he worked on the theatrical project "Opera Gialla," played in singer Rossana Casale's sextet, and took part in a concert of Ornette Coleman's music. His biography also credits him, around 2004, with a period in pianist Franco D'Andrea's New Quartet and in Di Castri's LabDance Orchestra, and, in 2005-2006, with a tour of Australia and New Zealand alongside saxophonist Carlo Actis Dato's group, playing the Mainly Jazz Festival in Sydney and the Montana Jazz Festival in Wellington; none of these credits is itemized on Discogs, so they are stated here as reported in his biography rather than as Discogs-verified.

On record, his Discogs history begins with saxophonist Gianni Virone's Quadricromia (2005) and continues through Virone's Frammenti (2009) and the Gianni Virone Trio's Chance (2018), the Fausto Ferraiuolo Trio's Artnam Mantra (2011), Barber Mouse's Subsonica tribute Plays Subsonica (2012, Auand) and the Gianni Denitto 5et's Remixin' Standards (2012, EmArcy/Universal). In 2008 he recorded his own Djarabi, a quartet date with bass clarinetist Mirco Mariottini, guitarist Max Carletti and bassist Stefano Risso; the record was held back for a decade and self-released only in 2018. Its title means "love" in an African language, chosen for its sound before Barbieri learned the meaning, and it carries personal weight: one track is a lullaby for his children, and his father listened to the recording during his final hospitalization.

Since 2011 Barbieri has been the drummer in an all-star band assembled by singer Peppe Servillo, formerly of Avion Travel, alongside trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso, pianist Rita Marcotulli, saxophonist Javier Girotto and bassist Furio Di Castri. The group had already toured shows built on the songbooks of Frank Zappa and Domenico Modugno; with Barbieri aboard, it recorded Memorie Di Adriano - Canzoni Del Clan Celentano (2012, Pro Music Lab), a jazz reworking of Adriano Celentano's Clan-era repertoire taped live at the Teatro Cavallerizza in Reggio Emilia with no audience and no overdubs. The same band regrouped in 2025 for Pensieri E Parole - Canzoni Di Lucio Battisti (Parco della Musica Records), turning to the songs of Lucio Battisti, with Girotto arranging the horns. In the summer of 2012 his biography also places him in a project with French accordionist Richard Galliano centered on the music of Nino Rota, a connection not itemized on Discogs.

Barbieri is also the drummer of trumpeter Flavio Boltro's BBB Trio, with bassist Mauro Battisti, appearing on Spinning (2018, Anteprima) and Brigà (2023, Casa Editions), the latter expanded with electronic musician Malik Berki and Corsican singer-clarinetist Jérôme Casalonga, an outgrowth of a 2018 residency at CNCM Voce in Pigna, Corsica. In 2024 he recorded Behind Anatomy (AUAND) with saxophonist Francesco Bearzatti and bassist-electronics player Stefano Risso, pairing Ellington and Strayhorn material with Risso's originals, and Sunday Afternoon (Parco della Musica Records), a quintet led by Di Castri with trumpeter Giovanni Falzone, reedman Achille Succi and pianist Fabio Giachino, recorded at Casa del Jazz in Rome. With Giachino and saxophonist Gianni Denitto he also plays in TUN (Torino Unlimited Noise), a techno-jazz trio whose 2021 debut, New Door, is not on Discogs but is documented on streaming platforms. His most recent Discogs-verified credits include the Wayne Shorter tribute Mysterious Traveller (2025, Dodicilune, led by Giuseppe D'Angelo with the Stefano Risso Trio and Quartetto Eridano), where he also contributed photography, and an appearance on Corsican musician Jérôme Casalonga's Baina Project (2025).

Since 2008 Barbieri has focused much of his time on teaching, and he now instructs drums at Jazz School Torino, drawing on masterclass work with drummers including Marco Volpe, Ettore Fioravanti, Christian Mayer, Roberto Gatto and Aldo Romano.

Barbieri's discography splits between mainstream small-group jazz and more exploratory settings. The Servillo all-star band and the Boltro BBB Trio's Spinning sit in a lyrical, straight-ahead and post-bop tradition built around veteran Italian soloists; Sunday Afternoon and Behind Anatomy work in the same idiom while making room for original writing and, on the latter, live electronics from Stefano Risso. Brigà, which Discogs styles Avant-Garde Jazz, moves further out, setting Boltro's trumpet trio against a Corsican vocalist and a laptop, and his membership in the techno-jazz trio TUN extends that same willingness to work with electronic textures inside a jazz frame. Across both ends of that range his playing serves as the connective rhythm section work for a network of established Turin- and Rome-based jazz musicians rather than a single stylistic signature.