This comes from a Dutch gossip mag (prive), but unfortunately I don’t own a scanner, so I just took pics. It’s not much new, but I’m hoping it’s true, cause it seems cool! I Wonder if the pic is the real thing...
Translation:
British pop sensation takes over the world.
Mika finds Dream House in Amsterdam
The British pop sensation MIKA, who ruled almost every hit list in 2007, is said to be a mix of FREDDY MERCURY and Scissor sisters. Some people paid a thousand euros for his first concert in the Netherlands! A frenzied crowd is not the only thing Mika got from Amsterdam. In the well-known “Spiegelkwartier” Mika found the house of his dreams!
Mika was on top of the hit lists with his single Grace Kelly for weeks, which was just the start of the overwhelming success that was gonna follow and in which no one believed. Mika (24) therefore calls this his f*ck you-song which he wrote as a revenge for everyone who didn’t believe in him. When he did get signed, he ripped his contract when it got clear he had to turn into a kind of CRAIG DAVID. But it seemed he did have to turn into a bit more commercial role if he wanted to be successful. Ironically enough it was this frustration that led to his first hit. ‘It seemed like a fun idea to put al my anger into a song’ he tells in an interview. ‘When it was finished, I sent the lyrics and the cd Grace Kelly to everyone who had turned me down. No one has ever phoned me back…’ His breakthrough came when he auditioned in his own way for a talent scout in a hotel lobby. ‘The guy was probably more ashamed than me, because everybody was looking at me like ‘who is that weirdo?’ smiles Mika. Grace Kelly immediately became a hit and Relax, take it easy went even beyond this success, Big girl (you are beautiful) is also high up in the hit parades and his album Life in Cartoon Motion has become gold. On november 11th, the Amsterdam Heineken Music Hall was full of frenzied fans that were lucky enough to get a hold of tickets. Some of them had paid a thousand euros on the black market for the first concert that the British pop sensation gave in the Netherlands.
Plastic Bag
Mika himself enjoyed the show as well as Amsterdam, where he already had been an afternoon last spring. He really wanted to come back to visit the Van Gogh Museum as well as to feel the ‘great vibes’ of our capital city. Now when he was in town a bit longer, he walked along the canals and the “Spiegelkwartier” with all the art and antique shops, that’s where he found his dream house: a beautiful, on scale, 18th century dollhouse. Despite of the very high price, he bought it immediately and he wants to use it in his next video clips! And whoever knows his clips, can guess what it’s gonna look like. But not just in his clips, also on his website, you can see Mika’s creativity which, just like his cd cover, he designed with his sister YASMINE. Like Yasmine’s name gives away they come from the Middle East. Mika Penniman was born in 1983 in Beirut to a Lebanese Mother and an American Father. Even though Mika doesn’t really sound Arabic, it is his real name: ‘My parents gave all of their children exotic names with a beautiful meaning. My Brother’s name is FORTUNÉ, which means luck in French. My sisters are called PALOMA, pigeon, ALLEGRA, happiness and Yasmine, flower. And I’m Mika, which means plastic bag in Moroccan! In 1984 the family moved to Paris and eight years later on, to London. At his new, British school, Mika felt very unhappy. He was so depressed, he even stopped talking. He stayed home for half a year before his parents found another school and in that time he started singing and writing songs and he turned into a piano virtuoso. Soon he got jobs: from writing a jingle for a chewing gum commercial to recordings at the Royal Opera House! His biggest wish is to give a show that looks like a circus, in a tent with fortunetellers and all. And the place where Mika would love to do it and where the people are cool enough to appreciate it is...Amsterdam!
