Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr. (born August 18, 1983), better known as Mika, is a singer-songwriter from Beirut, Lebanon, who was raised in Paris and London.
Mika was named the number one predicted breakthrough act of 2007 after recording his first extended play, Dodgy Holiday, in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2007.
Mika’s first full-length studio album, Life in Cartoon Motion, was released on Island Records in 2007 and has sold over 8.3 million copies worldwide, earning Mika a Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act and 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 a judge/mentor on both the French and Italian versions of The Voice.
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 will co-host the Eurovision Song Contest with Italian singer Laura Pausini and Italian television presenter Alessandro Cattelan.
Mika has worked as a visual artist and designer on a variety of projects, including sunglasses for the Italian eyewear company Lozza, a clothing line for Belgian retailer JBC, pens for Pilot’s 100th anniversary, and three watches for Swiss company Swatch (along with his sister Yasmine).
Mika Parents: Meet Joannie Penniman, Michael Holbrook Penniman
His parents are an American-born Lebanese mother (Mary Joan “Joannie” Mouakad, daughter of John Mouakad and Odette Farah) and an Israeli-born American father (Michael Holbrook Penniman, son of William Frederick Penniman III and Dorothy Dyar). Mika’s father was a banker who was born in Jerusalem. Mika’s paternal grandfather, William Frederick Penniman III, was a diplomat.
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