Mika

Michael Holbrook Penniman (born 18 August 1983), known as Mika (IPA [ˈmikə]), is a Lebanon-born, London-based singer who has a recording contract with Casablanca Records and Universal Music.

Mika was born in Beirut

Michael Holbrook Penniman (born 18 August 1983), known as Mika (IPA [ˈmikə]), is a Lebanon-born, London-based singer who has a recording contract with Casablanca Records and Universal Music.

Mika was born in Beirut, Lebanon, the middle child of five children born to a Lebanese mother and an American father. When he was one year old his family was forced to leave war-torn Lebanon and moved to Paris. He wrote his first song, which he describes as an "awful" piano instrumental called "Angry", at age seven. The family moved to London when he was nine years old. In London he then attended the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle where he experienced more severe bullying at school and had problems with dyslexia, so he was home-schooled by his mother for close to a year.. He then attended St Philips School in Kensington. He then attended Westminster School and the Royal College of Music, which he later left to record his first album.