Mika (singer)

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

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. It 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 French and Spanish versions of The Voice, and the Italian version of X Factor.

Mika also starred for two seasons in his own television variety show in Italy, Stasera Casa Mika, 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.

In addition to his musical career, Mika has 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.