Arjan Interviews Mika (+ Free MP3 Download)

June 27, 2007

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So what is it about your music that has this mass appeal? Have you figured it out yet?
It is honest. You can call it pop; you can call it rock; you can call it dance-induced organic versions of pop with influences from the '70s and the '90s. You can try to write a doctorate about it and you would be wasting your time. At the end of the day, it is just honest credible music that takes a serious approach to put things across in the most empowering and accessible way and that's what good pop music is.

In your lyrics, you often choose the side of the outsider or the outcast.
Absolutely. I have been an outsider myself my entire life. I never was an outsider by choice. I was made to be the outsider -- like most people are. I considered myself somebody that was made to watch because I couldn't join in. What I write about lyrically is about normality. It is funny to me that the mundane or the everyday in a pop song suddenly seems very strange to people. So many things that are successful nowadays, especially in hip hop music, have so much to do with abnormal excess, materialism and superficialities that really you don't come across apart from in Hollywood. As soon as you start talking about the everyday or a character that you come across while going to the supermarket then that suddenly seems strange. So yeah, I suppose I take the normal -- I take the mundane; I take a character who is often overlooked. Like the girls in "Big Girl." I put them on a fantastical pillar and paint a multi-colored background and I stick a crown on their head, even when it is for three and a half minutes.

Why did you feel like an outsider?
As a child and teenager, I was completely rejected at school up until the age of 18. For every reason, first I was too short and fat, then I was too tall and skinny, my voice was too high, I liked music, I collect toys, I have a mother who is overweight, I supposedly had big hips. Everything. Some kids have trouble and some kids don't. I ended being the kid having trouble. So I had to deal with a lot of bullying and that obviously made me an outcast.

Did it make you stronger?
It gave me perspective. If it did empower me in any way that is certainly not to the credit of the bullies. That would only be to the credit of the family that I come from. We're quite a tough Lebanese matriarchal family. Bullies don't make you strong, they just destroy you. You just have to resist it.

What is people's fascination with your sexuality?
There's many reasons. In order to talk about something like that you have to deconstruct it. There's the celebrity aspect and in the world of reality television we have this notion that if you are someone who is put in the spotlight irrelevant of what you do for a living you're immediately deemed a public property. And because of that you're supposed to offer up your entire life on the plate and let people devour you like some cheap all-you-can-eat buffet. I'm not a salad bar! I choose to keep many things, not just my private life or personal life, to myself. I think you have to set up how you want to position yourself as a public figure. I'm a writer first. I'm a performer second. However, now that I've been performing more and I'm getting more well known, the celebrity aspect that comes with performing seems to take over everything.

Do you think you're teasing your gay fans by going on the cover of OUT while not willing to be specific about your own sexuality?
No. Not in the slightest. I have a very strong gay following. Very strong and I have been fostered by gay media and promoted by gay media in the U.K. and the U.S. almost before anybody else was promoting me. I think it would be dishonest and it would be wrong, and it would be really stupid not to do a cover like that. Attitude was the first cover in the U.K., OUT was the first cover in the United States. And I'm very proud of that.

Is it true you received death threats because you don't want to discuss your personal life?
Oh you know what, people rant a lot on blogs.

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