Mika

Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr. (born 18 August 1983), known professionally as Mika (, stylised in all caps), is a singer-songwriter born in Beirut, Lebanon, and raised in Paris and London.

On 18 August 1983, Mika was born in Beirut, the third of five children—he has two older sisters, Yasmine and Paloma, a younger sister Zuleika, and a younger brother, Fortuné.

His parents are an American-born Lebanese-Syrian mother (Mary Joan "Joannie", Mouakad, daughter of John Mouakad and Odette Farah) and an American father (Michael Holbrook Penniman, son of William Frederick Penniman III and Dorothy Dyar).

Mika's father was a banker born in Jerusalem.

His paternal grandfather William Frederick Penniman III was a diplomat.

Mika's maternal grandfather John Mouakad was Syrian (from Damascus).

When Mika was a year old, his family was forced to leave war-torn Lebanon and moved to Paris, France.

The family lived happily for a time in Paris.

"I was brought up as a Parisian boy, you know," Mika said in an interview.

"With the pencil-striped trousers and the hat that I had to wear to school. It was very traditional..."

The first piano piece the young Mika learned to play was "Les Champs-Élysées", by Joe Dassin.

At the age of 7, he wrote his first song, a piano instrumental called "Angry", which he describes as "awful".

In 1990 Mika's father went on a business trip to Kuwait and became trapped in the U.S. embassy for seven months when the Gulf War broke out.

When the elder Penniman returned home, he had to take a new job, which meant a move to London.

The family moved to London when Mika was 9 years old.

There, he attended the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, where he experienced severe bullying and had problems with dyslexia.

In response to these experiences Mika was home-schooled by his mother and trained in music by Alla Ardakov (Ablaberdyeva), a Russian opera professional.

He also studied with the Royal Opera in London and made his stage debut as a chorus member in Strauss's Die Frau Ohne Schatten at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden.

He continued as a boy soprano with the Royal Opera and, at 15, he showcased his vocal range in a 1998 production of The Pilgrim's Progress by Vaughan Williams.

Although still young, Mika also worked singing jingles for a variety of companies, most notably Orbit chewing gum and British Airways.

Once he returned to school, Mika attended St Philip's School in Kensington, where he was the head of the Schola Cantorum (the St Philip's Choir).

Later he attended Westminster School in London, where he starred in a number of school productions to great acclaim.

After a very brief stint (one day) at the London School of Economics, Mika then managed to gain entrance to the Royal College of Music.

By day, Mika studied and practiced his scales, but by night, he visited the rock and electro clubs of Soho and Camden, and wrote pop songs.

Mika left the Royal College of Music to record his first album at Casablanca Records.

His first single was a limited 7"/download release called "Relax, Take It Easy" (2006). It was playlisted by UK's BBC Radio 1 and was made Record of the Week by DJ Scott Mills. His Dodgy Holiday EP also became available for download. The song "Billy Brown" was available for free download for a week from the iTunes Store. A song titled 'Overrated', which was recorded in 2004, was "unofficially" released online. His debut radio appearance was on Dermot O'Leary's BBC Radio 2 show in September 2006.

After recording his first extended play, Dodgy Holiday, Mika was predicted to be the number-one breakthrough act of 2007 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2007.

Mika released his first full-length studio album, Life in Cartoon Motion, on Island Records in 2007, which has sold more than 8.3 million copies worldwide and helped Mika win a Brit Award—Best British Breakthrough act—and receive a Grammy Award nomination.

He topped the UK Singles Chart in January 2007 with "Grace Kelly" and has since gone on to record four more platinum-selling studio albums (most recently My Name is Michael Holbrook released in October 2019), as well as serve as judge/mentor on both the French version of The Voice and the Italian version of X Factor.

In 2007, things took off for Mika.

His single "Grace Kelly" was released by Universal Music for digital download on 8 January 2007.

On 19 January 2007, he appeared on Later... with Jools Holland, and on The Friday Night Project.

That same month, Mika was voted the top of the BBC News website's Sound of 2007 poll.

"Grace Kelly" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart on 21 January 2007, and stayed at number one for five weeks.

The single featured on his debut album, Life In Cartoon Motion, which was released on 5 February 2007.

The album went straight to number one in the UK and 11 other countries, and brought comparisons with artists such as Freddie Mercury, Scissor Sisters, Elton John, Prince, Robbie Williams and David Bowie.

The song "Grace Kelly", in fact, references Mercury in the lyrics: "I try to be like Grace Kelly/But all her looks were too sad/So I tried a little Freddie/I've gone identity mad."

In addition to his musical career, Mika has also worked as a visual artist and designer on various projects, among them sunglasses for the Italian eyewear company Lozza, a clothing line for Belgian retailer JBC, pens for the 100th anniversary of Pilot, and (along with his sister Yasmine) three watches for Swiss company Swatch.

Mika also starred for two seasons in his own television variety show in Italy, , which won the 2017 Rose d'Or Award for Entertainment, and has hosted his own BBC Radio 2 show The Art of Song.

In 2022, he co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest alongside Italian singer Laura Pausini and Italian television presenter Alessandro Cattelan.