Mika's portrait in the frnch newspaper "Libération"

[Sephira]

Sorry it's in french.

 

28/09/2009

Le grand serein

portraitMIKA. La nouvelle star pop a trouvé dans la créativité une issue à une adolescence compliquée.

 

 

Par MATTHIEU ECOIFFIER

 

 

Premier constat : Mika est très grand - 1,92 m selon sa maison de disque - et il a aussi de grands pieds. A l’autre extrémité de ce long corps sèchement musclé et au bassin d’une générosité, disons méditerranéenne, ondule une épaisse chevelure châtain quand ses yeux noisette s’ourlent de longs cils. Comme dans les cartoons dont il tapisse ses pochettes et ses chansons. 20 h 30. Au bout de trois bobines, le photographe s’énerve, prend le beau visage du chanteur dans ses mains. Lui remet le tee-shirt dans le pantalon à bretelles. Mika est surpris, mais ne se braque pas. Plutôt curieux et finalement pas mécontent de laisser tomber la pression. «On a vendu six millions du précédent CD dont 1,4 en France, autant en Angleterre et seulement 200 000 aux Etats-Unis», précise son manager trentenaire au look de trader. C’est dire l’enjeu commercial du second intitulé : le Garçon qui en savait trop, «et ne sait pas quand s’arrêter», s’est énervé un critique saoulé par les falsettos de sa voix de trois octaves et demi, le carrousel de références (de Freddie Mercury à Georges Michael) d’un opus pourtant porté par une fantaisie et une puissance mélodique hors normes.

 

Une fois assis au fond du bar où il commande une bière en habitué des pubs londoniens, il remet au carré les hypothèses biographiques déformées par la notoriété. Il a raconté que, tout petit, il était «obsédé par Chantal Goya et sa forêt magique» et le voilà réinventé en cousine de Bécassine. Il habite à Londres dans le même immeuble que ses parents ? Le voilà aussitôt rhabillé en Tanguy attardé, entouré de trois sœurs aux petits soins et de son petit frère Fortuné. «Je connais le film, mais c’est pas ma vie ! J’ai mon appartement à l’entresol avec une cuisine et une machine à laver.»

 

21 heures. Peu à peu, les dorures du palace parisien qu’il qualifie de «rococo» semblent agir sur lui comme des madeleines mémorielles. Il parle un français moins contrôlé que son anglais, car lié à son enfance. Son père financier américain et sa mère issue de la bourgeoisie libanaise ont déménagé à Paris quand il avait un an. C’était le temps du Mika doré, du bel appartement du XVIe arrondissement. Celui des bonnes notes à l’école et du professeur de piano russe qui buvait trop de café et avait mauvaise haleine. «Il y avait aussi un prêtre libanais qui venait prendre des verres chez nous chaque semaine. J’avais six ans et il avait un deal avec moi. Il fumait sa pipe, ensuite il mettait son bras derrière le canapé pour me la passer. J’adorais le goût de miel, comme du sucre brûlé.» Lors de la guerre du Golfe, son père est retenu pendant sept mois à l’ambassade américaine au Koweit.

 

La famille connaît un revers de fortune et se retrouve à Londres. Où Mika se fait virer du lycée français. «C’est comme si un bloc était tombé sur moi. En un an, je suis devenu dyslexique. Avant ça, je pouvais lire la musique et je pouvais écrire. J’ai tout perdu.» Sa mère le déscolarise et le laisse faire ce qu’il veut à condition de respecter les trois heures quotidiennes de piano. Il compose ses premières chansons à 11 ans. «Super simples et super nulles. Mais j’adorais les tester sur les gens et voir s’ils allaient les reprendre.»

 

Pour les garçons dégingandés, sensibles comme lui, la puberté est l’occasion de s’en prendre plein la gueule. «J’étais totalement à part. Pas assez intelligent pour être dans le club des geeks, pas cool, pas sportif. Et j’étais rejeté parce que je n’étais pas très manly[viril, ndlr] et costaud. Je suis goofy[maladroit]», constate-t-il en souriant. Sur scène, aujourd’hui, «ça [lui] donne du style». Mais au lycée, il fait le plein d’injures. «J’avais cette identité de clown triste. J’ai commencé à devenir destructeur : je sortais trop, buvais trop, trouvais de la compagnie auprès des gens plus âgés.» Sauf que cette fois, il est musicalement armé pour mettre au point sa formule magique : se servir de la puissance mélodique des comptines pour faire danser jusqu’à ceux qui le rejettent.«Nous ne sommes pas ce que vous croyez, nous sommes faits d’or», chante-t-il. Ou encore, limite incestueux : «Je veux être ton frère, ton père, ta mère et ta sœur et quoi que ce soit d’autre qui te touche.»

 

Il s’inquiète de se voir enfermé dans ce monde imaginaire qu’il s’est confectionné pendant son adolescence. Acidulé oui, sucré non . «A Canal +, ils me demandent si je reviendrai en Teletubbies dans une autre vie, si j’ai un syndrome de Peter Pan ? Mais ce n’est pas du tout mon caractère, pas du tout ce que je fais. Personne ne pose cette question à Tim Burton. Lui est un génie : il a cette fantaisie», corrige-t-il. Avant de rappeler, en anglais, que «l’enfance joyeuse est un pur concept marketing». Mika ressemble plus un à Edward aux mains d’argent qui aurait des touches de piano greffées au bout des doigts, qu’à Pee Wee, l’homme enfant.

 

Avec un tel CV, le magasine gay Têtu s’énerve que Mika refuse de faire son coming out. Lui assure qu’il n’a rien d’«un acteur hollywoodien dans le placard. La sexualité, je suis très ouvert avec ça. Certains me disent : "Tu as peur commercialement." Mais ils n’ont pas écouté mes titres !» «Il a un visage à te faire mettre à genoux», chante-t-il dans Blame it on the Girls… Après avoir subi leur violence réductrice, il ne voit pas pourquoi il se collerait lui-même des étiquettes. Libre aux autres de le faire : «Je ne cache rien de ma vie, je n’ai honte de rien. Est-ce que je suis dans une relation en ce moment ? Ouais. Mais je la protège.» Le Figaro l’imagine «consensuel en diable, gendre idéal capable de tenir une conversation». Sauf qu’il a refusé de venir dîner à l’Elysée avec Nicolas Sarkozy et le président du Liban : «Si j’étais fan, inspiré par ce que dit Sarkozy, j’aurais fait l’aller-retour de LA.» En revanche, il trouve «super intéressant» de voir ce que va faire Frédéric Mitterrand qu’il regardait dans Etoiles et toiles au ministère de la Culture. Mika se déclare «apolitique» mais «culturellement à gauche. Surtout, mon avis ne compte pas. Est-ce que je vais demander à Sarkozy de venir jouer du piano ou donner son avis sur la musique ?» Pourtant, il vote. Et n’a rien d’une jeune pop-star éthérée. De passage trois jours à Paris, il semble plus affûté sur la loi Hadopi que Juliette Gréco et Pierre Arditi : «Cet Hadopi truc voté hier, ça me fait peur. C’est une atteinte à la liberté.» Lui défend le streaming (abonnement pour écoute en ligne sans téléchargement) tout en prédisant «une bataille entre les artistes et les maisons de disques» pour la répartition des royalties.

 

22 heures. L’heure d’aller dîner. Sa mère, belle et imposante, apparaît au bout du couloir. Demain, Mika a une journée off. Il se promènera dans les rues de Paris «probablement seul». «Je marche, c’est le seul truc qui m’aide dans ma vie.»

[FOUCHONNERET]

i posted on facebook too before

but know,who wants to translate??

 

[Kodes100]

Thank you sephira!

I can't wait for the translation.

[mariposa]

Merci for posting!

Interesting to read...

 

I could give it a try (the translation)...But since French is not my mother tongue it might take some time...Maybe some Frenchies would like to help me?

 

Well, for a start, I decided to pick this sentence

 

«Je ne cache rien de ma vie, je n’ai honte de rien. Est-ce que je suis dans une relation en ce moment ? Ouais. Mais je la protège.»

 

"I'm not hiding anything that is part of my life, I'm not ashamed of anything. Am I in a relationship at this moment? Yes. But I protect it."

 

Oh, and here's the link btw

http://www.liberation.fr/culture/0101593678-le-grand-serein

[FOUCHONNERET]

Merci for posting!

Interesting to read...

 

I could give it a try (the translation)...But since French is not my mother tongue it might take some time...Maybe some Frenchies would like to help me?

 

Well, for a start, I decided to pick this sentence

 

«Je ne cache rien de ma vie, je n’ai honte de rien. Est-ce que je suis dans une relation en ce moment ? Ouais. Mais je la protège.»

 

"I'm not hiding anything that is part of my life, I'm not ashamed of anything. Am I in a relationship at this moment? Yes. But I protect it."

 

ok marion,you did it better than me,i can't make it ,prefer someone else do it!sorry for my poor english(but MFC helps me to make it better and better:naughty:)

[mikalollipop_karla]

Thx

[mariposa]

Ok, so I will start working on a translation. And when it's finished check back with you to see if I got right what the author wanted to say

 

Might take some time though...If someone is faster than me, feel free to go for it. At least it's a good practise for me then

[FOUCHONNERET]

Ok, so I will start working on a translation. And when it's finished check back with you to see if I got right what the author wanted to say

 

Might take some time though...If someone is faster than me, feel free to go for it. At least it's a good practise for me then

oh thanks marion,i could go to bed in peace:aah:(and i ask someone else to help you:wink2:)

good night!

[agathaxxx]

Merci for posting!

Interesting to read...

 

I could give it a try (the translation)...But since French is not my mother tongue it might take some time...Maybe some Frenchies would like to help me?

 

Well, for a start, I decided to pick this sentence

 

«Je ne cache rien de ma vie, je n’ai honte de rien. Est-ce que je suis dans une relation en ce moment ? Ouais. Mais je la protège.»

 

"I'm not hiding anything that is part of my life, I'm not ashamed of anything. Am I in a relationship at this moment? Yes. But I protect it."

 

Oh, and here's the link btw

http://www.liberation.fr/culture/0101593678-le-grand-serein

 

Oooooh he's in a relationship?

[laura*]

Merci!

 

It's a very interesting interview! He was able to read music!!!

[Lena]

Merci!

 

It's a very interesting interview! He was able to read music!!!

did you not know??

[laura*]

did you not know??

 

I thought he was never able to read music. It's the first time I've read that he was able to read music at the beginning!

[natmika]

Oooooh he's in a relationship?

 

He's been saying that for weeks.

 

I thought he was never able to read music. It's the first time I've read that he was able to read music at the beginning!

 

He's said in the past that he can't write in french anymore but he could when he was little. I think that when his dyslexia kicked in (when they moved to England) he lost his ability to write in french and maybe to read music. But that's just my opinion:dunno:

[laura*]

He's been saying that for weeks.

 

 

 

He's said in the past that he can't write in french anymore but he could when he was little. I think that when his dyslexia kicked in (when they moved to England) he lost his ability to write in french and maybe to read music. But that's just my opinion:dunno:

 

You don't become dyslexic suddenly! And normally it shouldn't involve the ability to read music. He may not be really dyslexic after all, his problems may have been caused by his bad experiences.

[Mika_Addiction]

Relationship?.. Hmprf..

 

Nooo, I'm happy for him! If he's happy, I'm happy!

[mariposa]

Ok, I'm done now with the translation...

It was quite difficult to put it into "understandable" English since the author uses a lot of methaphorical language and (as I've already explained) French isn't my first language.

I guess I understood most of is right, though I'm not 100% sure about everything. So if you Frenchies or other French-speaking MFCers find that I translated sth completely wrong, please correct me.

 

Gotta do some editing on the text now and will post the whole translation in a few minutes.

[katydid1994]

Thank you mariposa! It looked like fhkfafhahfahfah to me, so it'll be great!

[natmika]

You don't become dyslexic suddenly! And normally it shouldn't involve the ability to read music. He may not be really dyslexic after all, his problems may have been caused by his bad experiences.

 

You don't become dyslexic suddenly, but the simptoms can appear after a traumatic experience (moving, changing schools). And for some reason, in latin speaking countries (as France) dyslexia isn't as common because the language is the same phonetically and in written form. Anyway, that's what I've read but I'm no expert:naughty:

[mariposa]

In red my comments.

 

Le grand serein

(no idea about how to translate the title…any ideas?)

 

portrait

 

MIKA. Creativity has helped the new pop star to find a way out of his complicated teenage years.

 

By MATTHEW ECOIFFIER

 

First observation: Mika is very tall – according to his record label he measures 1.92 m (6.3 feet)- and he also has big feet. At the other end of this long well toned body and his - let’s call it Mediterranean - good looks, undulates thick auburn hair whenever his hazel eyes are framed by long lashes. (This sentence is my favourite! ) Just like the cartoons painted on his CD booklets and which can also be found in his songs. 20 h 30. After Mika had made three faces (I guess it is in the sense that Mika was joking/making faces?) the photographer gets angry, takes the singer's beautiful face in his hands. He puts Mika‘s shirt back in his pants held by suspenders/braces. Mika is surprised, but doesn’t do anything (in reaction). He looks rather inquisitive/curious and seems to be happy that the pressure is dropping now. "We sold six million of the previous CD, including 1.4 in France and as many in England, and just about 200 000 in the United States," says his manager who looks like a trader in his thirties. That is the commercial callenge of his second CD with the title: The Boy Who Knew Too Much, "and doesn’t know when to stop," as stated one angry critic being inspired by the falsettos of his three octaves and a half ranging voice as well as by the carousel of references (from Freddie Mercury to George Michael); an opus that is yet based on a fantasy and extraordinary power melodies.

 

Once seated in the back of a bar where he orders a beer as you would usually do in London pubs, he starts putting the hypothesis made about his biography, which had often been changed after he got famous, back in the picture (he corrects them). He told us that when he was a child he was "obsessed by Chantal Goya and her magic forest" and now reinvented as Bécassine’s cousin (What’s that about?). Is it true that he lives in London in the same building as his parents? There he is immediately dressed as a late/retarded (?)Tanguy* surrounded by his three very caring sisters and his little brother Fortune. "I know the film, but it's not my life! I have my own apartment on the mezzanine floor with a kitchen and a washing machine."

 

21h 00. Slowly, the gilded (GOLDEN! ) Parisian palace that he describes as "Rococo" seems to take him over like a “Madeleine mémorielle” (I think this is just a metaphor to explain that something takes you back, you remember sth?). His French is less controlled than his English, because of his childhood. His father, an American financier, and his mother, belonging to the Lebanese bourgeoisie, moved to Paris when he was one year old. It was the golden times of Mika, living in a beautiful apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement (in Paris). It was the times of good grades at school and of the Russian piano teacher who drank too much coffee and bad breath. "There was also a Lebanese priest who used to come to our house every week to have a drink. I was six years old and he had a deal with me. He smoked his pipe, then he put his arm behind the sofa and passed it to me. I loved the taste of honey, like burnt sugar.”During the Gulf War, his father was detained for seven months at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait.

 

The family experienced a reversal of fortune and they find themselves in London. That is where Mika got sacked from the French high school. "It is as if a block had fallen on me. In one year I became dyslexic. Before that, I could read music and I could write. I lost it all.” His mother got him out of school and lets him do what he wants to do provided that he would practice playing the piano for three hours a day. He composed his first songs aged 11. "Super simple and not very good. But I loved testing them on people and see if they would remember them. "

 

For lanky boys, sensitive like him, puberty is the time where you get attacked a lot. "I was totally apart. Not smart enough to be in the club of geeks, not cool, not sporty. And I was rejected because I was not very manly and stout. I’m goofy», he says smiling. Now this "adds to his style” when performing on stage. But in high school, he was insulted because of that. "I had this identity of a sad clown. I began to adopt a destructive behaviour: I went out too often, drank too much, spent time with older people" Except that this time he is musically armed to develop his magic formula: using the power of melodies of counting-out rhymes which make even those people dance who reject him. "We're not what you think, we are made of gold," he sings. Or, at a pinch incestuous "I want to be your brother, your father, your mother and your sister and whatever else that touches you." (The author got this message wrong obviously…nothing incestuous about it IMO. It's about jealousy, right? Being jealous e. g. of your beloved's family...)

 

He was concerned about seeing himself locked up in this imaginary world he has created in his teens. Nor sour, nor sweet. "At Canal+ (French tv channel), they asked me if I will come back as a Teletubby in another life, if I had the Peter Pan syndrome? But this is not at all my character, not at all what I’m doing. Nobody asks this question to Tim Burton. He is a genius, he has this fantasy, he corrects. Before recalling in English, that "the image of a joyful childhood is a pure marketing concept. Mika would rather be an Edward Scissorhands who would have grafted piano keys at his fingertips, than Pee Wee, the man child. (love this image!)

 

With such a CV, the gay magazine Tetu is irritated that Mika refuses to come out of the closet. He says that he is not "a Hollywood actor in the closet. I am very open when it comes to sexuality. Some people tell me: "You're afraid of the commercial consequences." “But they did not listen to my tracks!" He's got a face to make you fall on your knees," he sings in Blame it on the Girls ... Having overcome their simplistic violence, he does not see why he should label himself. But others are free to do so: "I don’t hide anything that is part of my life, I am not ashamed of anything. Am I in a relationship right now? Yeah. But I protect it.” Le Figaro pictures him as "a cross between the devil and the perfect son-in-law who is capable of having a good conversation." (lol) This is contradicted by the fact that he declined to have dinner at the Elysée Palace with Nicolas Sarkozy and the Lebanese President: "If I was a fan, andwere inspired by what Sarkozy says, I would have returned from LA." He finds it however “super interesting” to see what Frédéric Mitterrand will be doing whom he watched in Etoiles et toiles (Stars and paintings) (What is this btw?) at the Ministry of Culture. Mika sees himself as "apolitical" but "culturally left. But above all, my opinion doesn’t count. Should I ask Sarkozy to visit him to play the piano or ask his opinion on my music?". Nevertheless he goes the polls. And has nothing of a young ethereal pop star. Passing three days in Paris, he seems to be (plus affûté) sharper (?) on the Hadopi laws (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law ) as Juliette Greco and Pierre Arditi: "This Hadopi law voted upon yesterday scares me. It’s an infringement of freedom.”He defends streaming (subscription to listen to songs online without downloading) and predicts "a battle between artists and record labels" for the distribution of royalties.

 

22 h 00. The time to have dinner. His mother, appears beautiful and imposing at the end of the corridor. Tomorrow, Mika has a day off. He will go for a walk in the streets of Paris, "probably alone". "I’m walking/Going on, that's the only thing that has helped me in my life."

 

Photo Samuel Kirszenbaum

 

In 5 dates

 

August 18, 1983

Birth of Michael Penniman in Beirut (Lebanon).

 

2006

Release of his first digital single Relax, Take it Easy in Great Britain

 

2007

Including the hit single Grace Kelly, Life in Cartoon Motion becomes the best selling album of the year in France.

 

2008

Concert at the Parc des Princes in front of more than 55 000 people.

 

Septembre 2009

Release of The Boy That Knew Too Much, album written and composed in London and Paris and recorded in LA like the previous one.

 

* Tanguy is the main character of a novel and a film

The film was such an accurate description of the sociological phenomenon it evocates that

now in French the word Tanguy is the usual term to designate an adult still living with his parents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanguy_(film))

 

I think it's a really interesting article. I like interviews that cover a bit more than the usual thigs we would read/hear in any interview.

 

Ok, so if you have any remarks on how to correct this English version, please pm me. Will edit the post then first thing in the morning.

Edited September 30, 2009 by mariposa

[Christine]

Brilliant job Mariposa. Thank you so much

[natmika]

Thank you Mariposa!

[lollipop_monkey]

Thanks so much, Mariposa! I really appreciate your efforts, 'tis a long article!

[DANI56]

thank you Sephira and Mariposa!

[chickadee]

Thankyou for posting Sephira and for translating Mariposa. That was another very interesting article.

 

But dinner at 2200hrs? Far out! I'm beginning to think about bed then, not eating dinner!

[tiibet]

Thank you for posting and for translating! It was a long article and a lot of work, Mariposa!