MIKA in French Press - 2015

Hey! I did the translation of Neon Magazine, I didn't have a lot of time so I guess I've made some mistakes, feel free to correct me 

What thing do you prefer about you?

My adaptability. I’m the result of the mix of many cultures, thanks to that I can be in many different situations without being awkward. I’ve gained this chameleon side despite myself with moving. Instead of suffering from it, I’ve made it an advantage.

One of our journalists posed nude. Could you do it?

If it isn’t porn, yes. I’m quite modest and shy. When I go to a party, I don’t talk to anyone, except if I’m dead drunk. I don’t go out often, but I drink a lot (laughs) Yet, when I’ve the possibility to break away from this normal life, I do things I’d never do usually : wearing extravagant clothes, dancing, undressing… It’s not the person who makes awkwardness but the context/situation does.

We interviewed the NoFap people. Those people forbid/refuse masturbation, it’s a real discipline of life…

Ooh! I’m not at all as disciplined as them! I’ve never counted how long I can hold without masturbating but I won’t be as good as them! Far from it!

What do you think about the spying/intelligence bill which would allow the French State to get personal and private information?

I’m totally against it. It’s a quiet war. We don’t realize how much those details, collected together, the all of it, can be extremely powerful. We can build a sociologic model, predict trends,… What we shouldn’t do with a population! Everyone thinks his own little life doesn’t interest these services, that we are nothing on a global scale. But this droplet is a part of a huge wave. And this wave is very dangerous.

We interviewed some prison guards. They told us their difficulties of their job in society…

It’s very sad for them but I’m not surprised. I think everyone becomes aware of the limits of the traditional prison system. Putting people in prison doesn’t protect us. It doesn’t heal neither. However, there are some effective systems: in Norway, they work on the prisoner psychology, they rather help them, accompanying them than the punishment itself. This shade of difference is probably felt by the prison guards and their way to live their job.

Do you consider our generation is happier than the one's of our parents?

Yes, it’s funny because it’s a thing I often say. We haven’t known an economic boom and we will never know one. We don't have many things we can take for granted. So, we have to fight for it. And we are proud of it. We aren’t an indifferent/blasé generation, we are impressive/stunning. I do believe in this adage : less choices, more joy. During the economic crisis, I was in Royal College of Music, in UK. The next year, I was told the entries in art schools were multiplied by three. All these people who saw there was no longer opportunities in classic careers, in bank or others, decided to listen their artistic flair. It’s surprising.

How do you discover new artists?

With all this mass of music on Internet I think only one thing can help you differentiate: the artist identity. Does his/her music stick to his personality? Does what he/she says in itw is coherent with the music he/she makes? I think the musical credibility doesn’t end at the notes, it’s a whole. And it’s a point of reference for listeners.

Do you have websites to recommend?

I used to listen Radio 1 but lately I like only half of the playlist. The other half is a bit too fashionable/trendy. Otherwise, I suggest you Pandora, I find it well designed. Except the ads which piss me off.

Is your hypochondria getting worse now with Internet?

Totally! I spend my life on WebMD. One day, I woke up with a dry nose. I had a bit of blood in my nostrils and a burning sensation. I searched “I feel my nose burning” : I would die  this instant because of a brain tumor. The next day, I harassed my doctor and forced him to make me do two brain scanners. Obviously, I had nothing I just took plane a lot in the last few days… But, I could have one (a brain tumor) one day, I have to be careful!

Thank you for the translation! 

Thanks a lot Sixtine !!

The NEON interview is interesting !!

Okay I am really nosy but that is a bit TMI Mika!

Thanks for the scans and translation!!

Okay I am really nosy but that is a bit TMI Mika!

 

I'm doing my best to forget I ever read that part 

I can feel for his medical hysteria. I used to have bad headaches when my children were very young and forced doctors to scan my brains twice for that...

Okay I am really nosy but that is a bit TMI Mika!

 

Thanks a lot Sixtine!!  This really made my day, haha - MIKA is wonderful ...  

Love,love

me 

PSYCHOLOGIES no 352 Juin 2015

 

MIKA

 

"Mon père m'a donné le goût de lisque"

 

And now I do wonder what this article tells...

Love,love

me

Thanks Sixtine for the translation! I red all in one breath!

Thanks a lot Cath, Lucrezia and Sixtine for sharing and translating

And now I do wonder what this article tells...

 

Love,love

me

It's not on sale yet...so we have to wait

VIDEO

TÊTU

12 personnalités souhaitent un joyeux anniversaire à TÊTU

Thank you so much for the scans Chloé I will translate it tomorrow on the road as I'll be going away for the week end ( and not being the driver )

 

Here the scans of "Psychologies" magazine:

 

Mika Psy 1.jpeg Mika Psy 2.jpeg Mika Psy 3.jpeg Mika Psy 4.jpeg Mika Psy 5.jpeg Mika Psy 6.jpeg

Thanks!

Very interesting

 

Here the scans of "Psychologies" magazine: 

 

Mika Psy 1.jpegMika Psy 2.jpegMika Psy 3.jpegMika Psy 4.jpegMika Psy 5.jpegMika Psy 6.jpeg

 

Thanks a lot for sharing !!!

Thank you so much for the scans Chloé I will translate it tomorrow on the road as I'll be going away for the week end ( and not being the driver )

Thank you Anne, I'm waiting for you.

Thank you so much Chloé and Anne!!!

Thanks a lot for sharing !!!

 

 

 

Thank you Anne, I'm waiting for you.

Me too. Perhaps we should start a waiting room full of sofas!

 

Here the scans of "Psychologies" magazine: 

 

Mika Psy 1.jpegMika Psy 2.jpegMika Psy 3.jpegMika Psy 4.jpegMika Psy 5.jpegMika Psy 6.jpeg

 

Thank you so much for the scans Chloé I will translate it tomorrow on the road as I'll be going away for the week end ( and not being the driver )

Many thanks, Chloe for sharing it, and Anne!!

Another beautiful and interesting interview!

My father gave me a taste for risks.

"Relax" The singer is pushed for time but is taking a break

while promoting his new album. Childhood, pain, resilience: a meeting with the beautiful soul of an artist. A chat with Anne Laure Gannac

He's a puny character of 1 m 91, handsome as a successful young man and as sweet as a child, whose eyes marvel at life is filled with wonders and whose voice is cheerful. He mainly kept a blatant sense of fun from his chilhood. This is what made him become famous in 2007 when singing in his higher octaves this American-Lebanese singer no one knew yet ordered us to "relax" and not to "worry" puis ce qu' on ne pouvait rien y faire. Relax, take it easy: more than a hit, a motto.The motto of a generation who's only known crisis; and who became naturally stoical. Mika is a wonderful spokesman for this population who is n their thirties now-who might seem to be quiet and immature, but who has an acute consciousness - that disillusionment has made prone to be as quickly depressed as to quickly meet all the challenges.

After weeks spent chasing after him so much that we became desperate to catch him, we find ourselves chating with a kind and cheering boy in spite of a touch of melancoly which obviously makes him lovable. But Mika is also a commercial phenomenon , a family business running at full capacity: he is said to be tenacious when it comes to work. Anyway, at least on stage - everyone has seen him at least as a judge and coach in the talent show - he is a formidable competitor hiding in suits with flowers. Eternal boisterous boy or great wise man, at home everywhere as well as never settled in one place, Mika himself is a world o

of his own. An artist.

Psychologies: No Place In Heaven song which gave its name to your album sounds like a lament to God: the lament of a young man who feels he doesn' t deserve to go.to paradise because he sinned too much. Is this how you feel?

Mika: A "lament" I like this word,.which is both melancolic and delicious. Yes, it is very much how I see life. Actually , with this song I wanted to wreck the concept of paradise itself : the idea that one would have to earn their ticket for another better place somewhere else. My feeling is that if I want tp get ahead in life and be happy, that's something I have to annihilate, before being able to concentrate on the present time. But it's not that simple, particularly when, like me, you grew up in religious schools in which each day started with a twenty minute long prayer!

Psychologies: You didn' t you like this religious side?

Mika: I didn' t like school mainly! Even if that's where I have had my first musical experiences especially in choirs. I had ended up making a deal with the headmaster who said : "Ok , you can skip classes once in a while. But you have to meet two conditions: do your homework and sing in the choir!!

Psychologies: All things considered, very early, music was your way to get away?

Mika: No I wasn't trying to escape, but to survive! Music allowed me to deal with reality

while projecting myself in another one, a fantasy one. When I sing, ever since I started, I'm talking about the person I would dream to be. That is why I feel fine into music, as if I were "protected." Melodies give me strength, they are the muscles I don't have. And I have felt that very early. When I was seven I was obsessed with melodies. I would go everywhere with a suitcase filled with cassettes on which I had recorded melodies put together by type ( curious ones, strong ones, sad ones....) When I felt like saying something to a kid who bothered me or to my mother, I used to write it dow it down and add a melody to the text which for me gave more strength to what I meant to say.

Psychologies: Why did you have to do this to express yourself?

Mika: I don't know, I didn' t feel at ease, it's as simple as that. Actually I was in the exact opposite state to how I felt when I was singing. And that's still the case. Even if now I'm rather happy in life, I still feel a lot more powerful and a lot freer on a stage.

Psychologies: How was your childhood?

Mika: It was a very happy childhood, with lots of emotional stability. It was more complicated for material things. Till I was 7 or 8, we used to live in Paris in a pretty good neighborhood; my mother worked at home, where she designed clothes for children, my father had a good job. Then he lost it and at the same time my mother's business went down. All the sudden, we had nothing left, and the bailiffs took everything. It is very strange , for a child, to lose suddendly the confort all they have always known...

Psychologies: You must have felt very insecure I suppose?

Mika: What was the least reasuring was to see my parents cry. Losing what we had made us stronger I believe; ever since it happened I'm always cautious of too much materiality. It made me understand that stability is in other things than material ones. My mother's story also made me think that: she had already lived the similar story with her father, a man from Syria who arrived at Ellis Island without any money, before he became a rich in New York. When he died my mother was 18 years old and they lost everything. To protect her children from the shock she had known herself , she raised us repeating to us how important it is to learn how to create things with our hands. "If you can create, you will always be useful and you'll be able to survive everywhere." It is not a coincidence if today, her five children are artists. I have to say that when you grow up in a house filled with music, books...and freedom.

Psychologie: In such a family, where why didn' t you feel at ease as a child?

Mika: My anxiety was first linked to the fact that I felt unfit for what school, the world and society in general expected from me; and frustrated because I couldn' t make others undertand how I felt. I have always being somewhat dyslexic but it got seriously worse after we moved to England when I was 8. Probably due to the move but mainly because of the school: I found myself in a very severe French lycée with humiliating teachers I'm now able to know how cruel they were. When you' re already a fragile child, it makes you even more fragile. It was so bad that I had forgotten gow to read and write and nowadays I'm still unable to read music.

Psychologies: How did you get out of it?

Mika: After a few months, one of my sisters found out by chance, that my teacher was humiliating me, and she tols my parents My father came to fetch me at school. I still remember what a scandal it was, my teacher and him in the school yard. The headmaster summoned us. and he was very upset to tell us I could not come back to school ever. I have never been as happy as the day I got expelled! (laughs)

Psychologies: What's left of that child in you?

Mika: A person who once felt rejected will never forget about it. I kept a deep empathy for the "left outs", the "less than nothing". Moreover, I look for them, I defend them. And ultimately I'm proud of having been one of them. One has to be proud of one's difference.

Psychologies: What helped you make a strength out of your fragilities?

Mika: When I started writing songs at the age of 12 or 13, and I measured the effect they had on others, but also on myself. They gave me back a "context", I finally had a world of my own where I could express myself and find myself.

Psychologies: Find yourself where?Where do you feel you find yourself from?

Mika: I don' t know....even if I have almost never in Lebanon, lebanese culture has always been around in my house: in the colors, the smells. the food...And at the same time I can' t say I feel I'm from such town or such village. I often regretted it in the past. Not any more now. I don't feel attached to a place and I don't seek to be. My family is my clan, and that's where I find my identity, like Bedouins who travel all the time. A nomad is as close as one can be to nature since it moves just like seasons , just like the wind. Conversely, conflicts are born from the frontiers we set between each other and from "freezing". Yes, I think I'm happy because

Yes, I think I'm happy because I have learned to like nomadic life. But I'm sorry:you were asking me about my family and I'm telling you about Bedouins.

More:

His news: pop and confidences
Produced as a collaboration with Greg Wells, who worked with Pharell W illiams, Katy Perry and Adèle, Mika's fourth album finds its balance between party celebrations and entrusted fragilities. The artist didn't hesitate to include in it personal messages to his mother, to his lover and to God. A genuine Mika, to discover as well during his international tour, (In France, this coming September and October) No Place In Heaven (Barclay) will be released on June 15th.

Short questions:
A recurring dream?
Mika: I'm walking in the street and I lose my teeth. But I pick them up! And I put them in my pocket.
A phobia:
The sea. I like looking at the sea, at swimming pools. but I never go in. And if I dive into them I get out immediatly. That makes me water skying pro.
A tic?
Mika: I always frown my eyebrows, I don't know why, but that gives my forehead a fifty years old man wrinkles.
Your first childhood memory?
Mika: Paris, our first apartment filled with light, my father's cigarette box on the coffee table in the living room, my mother's perfume smell around us and my sisters wearing dresses with pompoms.
Your "madeleine de Proust" ( food that turns you instantly into a child again)?
https://wubr2000.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/madeleinedeproust.jpg?_e_pi_=7%2CPAGE_ID10%2C8632997043
Financier à l'amande. It's not very " lebanese" but you know there's a joke I like to say in the family : my cousin is so Lebanese that she is convinced that she is French!
A lie?
When I start a sentence with "Ok super!" that means that I totally disagree with what I'm being told.
A superstition?
I'm superstitious. For example, if I see a cent in the street, I run and get it. I would be terrified at the idea of leaving money on the floor.

My father gave me a taste for risks.

 

"Relax" The singer is pushed for time but is taking a break

while promoting his new album. Childhood, pain, resilience: a meeting with the beautiful soul of an artist. A chat with Anne Laure Gannac

 

He's a puny character of 1 m 91, handsome as a successful young man and as sweet as a child, whose eyes marvel at life is filled with wonders and whose voice is cheerful. He mainly kept a blatant sense of fun from his chilhood. This is what made him become famous in 2007 when singing in his higher octaves this American-Lebanese singer no one knew yet ordered us to "relax" and not to "worry" puis ce qu' on ne pouvait rien y faire. Relax, take it easy: more than a hit, a motto.The motto of a generation who's only known crisis; and who became naturally stoical. Mika is a wonderful spokesman for this population who is n their thirties now-who might seem to be quiet and immature, but who has an acute consciousness - that disillusionment has made prone to be as quickly depressed as to quickly meet all the challenges.

After weeks spent chasing after him so much that we became desperate to catch him, we find ourselves chating with a kind and cheering boy in spite of a touch of melancoly which obviously makes him lovable. But Mika is also a commercial phenomenon , a family business running at full capacity: he is said to be tenacious when it comes to work. Anyway, at least on stage - everyone has seen him at least as a judge and coach in the talent show - he is a formidable competitor hiding in suits with flowers. Eternal boisterous boy or great wise man, at home everywhere as well as never settled in one place, Mika himself is a world o

of his own. An artist.

 

Psychologies: No Place In Heaven song which gave its name to your album sounds like a lament to God: the lament of a young man who feels he doesn' t deserve to go.to paradise because he sinned too much. Is this how you feel?

Mika: A "lament" I like this word,.which is both melancolic and delicious. Yes, it is very much how I see life. Actually , with this song I wanted to wreck the concept of paradise itself : the idea that one would have to earn their ticket for another better place somewhere else. My feeling is that if I want tp get ahead in life and be happy, that's something I have to annihilate, before being able to concentrate on the present time. But it's not that simple, particularly when, like me, you grew up in religious schools in which each day started with a twenty minute long prayer!

Psychologies: You didn' t you like this religious side?

Mika: I didn' t like school mainly! Even if that's where I have had my first musical experiences especially in choirs. I had ended up making a deal with the headmaster who said : "Ok , you can skip classes once in a while. But you have to meet two conditions: do your homework and sing in the choir!!

Psychologies: All things considered, very early, music was your way to get away?

Mika: No I wasn't trying to escape, but to survive! Music allowed me to deal with reality

while projecting myself in another one, a fantasy one. When I sing, ever since I started, I'm talking about the person I would dream to be. That is why I feel fine into music, as if I were "protected." Melodies give me strength, they are the muscles I don't have. And I have felt that very early. When I was seven I was obsessed with melodies. I would go everywhere with a suitcase filled with cassettes on which I had recorded melodies put together by type ( curious ones, strong ones, sad ones....) When I felt like saying something to a kid who bothered me or to my mother, I used to write it dow it down and add a melody to the text which for me gave more strength to what I meant to say.

Psychologies: Why did you have to do this to express yourself?

Mika: I don't know, I didn' t feel at ease, it's as simple as that. Actually I was in the exact opposite state to how I felt when I was singing. And that's still the case. Even if now I'm rather happy in life, I still feel a lot more powerful and a lot freer on a stage.

Psychologies: How was your childhood?

Mika: It was a very happy childhood, with lots of emotional stability. It was more complicated for material things. Till I was 7 or 8, we used to live in Paris in a pretty good neighborhood; my mother worked at home, where she designed clothes for children, my father had a good job. Then he lost it and at the same time my mother's business went down. All the sudden, we had nothing left, and the bailiffs took everything. It is very strange , for a child, to lose suddendly the confort all they have always known...

Psychologies: You must have felt very insecure I suppose?

Mika: What was the least reasuring was to see my parents cry. Losing what we had made us stronger I believe; ever since it happened I'm always cautious of too much materiality. It made me understand that stability is in other things than material ones. My mother's story also made me think that: she had already lived the similar story with her father, a man from Syria who arrived at Ellis Island without any money, before he became a rich in New York. When he died my mother was 18 years old and they lost everything. To protect her children from the shock she had known herself , she raised us repeating to us how important it is to learn how to create things with our hands. "If you can create, you will always be useful and you'll be able to survive everywhere." It is not a coincidence if today, her five children are artists. I have to say that when you grow up in a house filled with music, books...and freedom.

Psychologie: In such a family, where why didn' t you feel at ease as a child?

Mika: My anxiety was first linked to the fact that I felt unfit for what school, the world and society in general expected from me; and frustrated because I couldn' t make others undertand how I felt. I have always being somewhat dyslexic but it got seriously worse after we moved to England when I was 8. Probably due to the move but mainly because of the school: I found myself in a very severe French lycée with humiliating teachers I'm now able to know how cruel they were. When you' re already a fragile child, it makes you even more fragile. It was so bad that I had forgotten gow to read and write and nowadays I'm still unable to read music.

Psychologies: How did you get out of it?

Mika: After a few months, one of my sisters found out by chance, that my teacher was humiliating me, and she tols my parents My father came to fetch me at school. I still remember what a scandal it was, my teacher and him in the school yard. The headmaster summoned us. and he was very upset to tell us I could not come back to school ever. I have never been as happy as the day I got expelled! (laughs)

Psychologies: What's left of that child in you?

Mika: A person who once felt rejected will never forget about it. I kept a deep empathy for the "left outs", the "less than nothing". Moreover, I look for them, I defend them. And ultimately I'm proud of having been one of them. One has to be proud of one's difference.

Psychologies: What helped you make a strength out of your fragilities?

Mika: When I started writing songs at the age of 12 or 13, and I measured the effect they had on others, but also on myself. They gave me back a "context", I finally had a world of my own where I could express myself and find myself.

Psychologies: Find yourself where?Where do you feel you find yourself from?

Mika: I don' t know....even if I have almost never in Lebanon, lebanese culture has always been around in my house: in the colors, the smells. the food...And at the same time I can' t say I feel I'm from such town or such village. I often regretted it in the past. Not any more now. I don't feel attached to a place and I don't seek to be. My family is my clan, and that's where I find my identity, like Bedouins who travel all the time. A nomad is as close as one can be to nature since it moves just like seasons , just like the wind. Conversely, conflicts are born from the frontiers we set between each other and from "freezing". Yes, I think I'm happy because

Yes, I think I'm happy because I have learned to like nomadic life. But I'm sorry:you were asking me about my family and I'm telling you about Bedouins.

 

More:

 

His news: pop and confidences

Produced as a collaboration with Greg Wells, who worked with Pharell W illiams, Katy Perry and Adèle, Mika's fourth album finds its balance between party celebrations and entrusted fragilities. The artist didn't hesitate to include in it personal messages to his mother, to his lover and to God. A genuine Mika, to discover as well during his international tour, (In France, this coming September and October) No Place In Heaven (Barclay) will be released on June 15th.

 

Short questions:

A recurring dream?

Mika: I'm walking in the street and I lose my teeth. But I pick them up! And I put them in my pocket.

A phobia:

The sea. I like looking at the sea, at swimming pools. but I never go in. And if I dive into them I get out immediatly. That makes me water skying pro.

A tic?

Mika: I always frown my eyebrows, I don't know why, but that gives my forehead a fifty years old man wrinkles.

Your first childhood memory?

Mika: Paris, our first apartment filled with light, my father's cigarette box on the coffee table in the living room, my mother's perfume smell around us and my sisters wearing dresses with pompoms.

Your "madeleine de Proust" ( food that turns you instantly into a child again)?

https://wubr2000.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/madeleinedeproust.jpg?_e_pi_=7%2CPAGE_ID10%2C8632997043

Financier à l'amande. It's not very " lebanese" but you know there's a joke I like to say in the family : my cousin is so Lebanese that she is convinced that she is French!

A lie?

When I start a sentence with "Ok super!" that means that I totally disagree with what I'm being told.

A superstition?

I'm superstitious. For example, if I see a cent in the street, I run and get it. I would be terrified at the idea of leaving money on the floor.

Thanks a lot, Anne!! 

Thanks a lot for your work as always !!

added your translation to the summary.

http://www.mikafanclub.com/topic/31554-mika-in-french-press-2015/?p=4001417

You're very welcome Charlie and Eriko

Thanks, Sis!