Mika is a British Grammy nominated singer-songwriter who became an international pop sensation 2007 with his first album Life In Cartoon Motion. It brought him three World Music Awards and a Brit Award as Best British Breakthrough Act and is still his most well-known album even the three studio albums released after that have significantly developed him as an artist. I discovered this artist purely because of his special, mesmerizing voice but soon learnt to also know his stage energy and exceptional creativity that can be seen in everything he does: stage settings, show elements, costumes, album cover illustrations and different design projects. First two Mika albums (Life In Cartoon motion 2007, The Boy Who Knew Too Much 2009) were full of cartoon like elements and characters but two albums after that (The Origin Of Love 2012, No Place In Heaven 2015) have developed his music to more direct and honest direction.
Mika was born in Beirut to Lebanese-American parents and is the middle of five siblings all working at creative fields. He lived his first childhood years in Paris and at the age of 8 moved to London which is still his official home town. He works and spends time in France and Italy and for example in Miami where he has a house and studio and is known for his cultural sensibility and ability to adapt to different environments and can easily be described as a cosmopolitan and someone who seems to feel at home wherever his work takes him.
Mika’s music can be for everyone – many of his songs are happy, cheerful tunes suitable for anyone who likes good quality pop music – but it gives more to those who bother to learn to know his special world and pay attention to colors and details and carefully listen to his words and message telling about love, tolerance and freedom. His world full of music is like an ideal version of our real world and describes how our life could be if we just allowed that to happen. There are many tones and not only candy colors and Mika himself is constantly using his public position to talk about dyslexia and his own experiences at school age and collaborating with different associations helping for example refugees and children and I appreciate it that someone who’s career I’m following this closely is using his voice in every meaning and I’m happy to invest my time in someone who’s opinions and values I can respect and share.
The most important music project Mika has done so far is his symphony collaboration with Canadian conductor Simon Leclerc. As a result of this collaboration Mika did six symphony concerts in Montreal, Como and Florence during years 2015-16 performing a symphony set of his own songs. Symphony pop is my personal favorite of everything Mika has done, not only because his skilled voice sounds beautiful with an orchestra and because symphony arrangements take his songs to a new level but also because it shows he can’t easily be categorized and labeled as an artist, something very characteristic to him. He has done two one of the kind massive spectacles in France (Parc de Prince 2008, Bercy 2016) and a lot of smaller tours and shows all over the world, always with his old-fashioned elegance and style. He’s not the kind of artist who brings on stage anything ordinary like typical pop dance groups, it’s much more likely we will see a children’s choir, a ballet group or for example a burlesque dancer.
Mika started his television career a few years ago taking part of X Factor Italia and The Voice France as a judge and a coach and has done both shows several seasons. Year 2016 he started his own one man television show Casa Mika on Italian television and continued it two seasons and was awarded with a Golden Rose Award in Berlin September 2017. At first many fans were surprised by Mika’s decision to start his television career with talent shows but his television work itself was not that big of a surprise and we might see more of it in the future along with radio work, theatre shows, musicals or even films. If curious to know more about this artist and want to see some examples of his concert performances check out my reviews linked in the menu (events by year/country). Thanks for reading xxx