Mika

And that's when the dyslexia really settled in.

Long story short, I get kicked out of school.

I had issues with a teacher and my mother looked at me and she goes, you know what?

You're not going to go to school.

I'll say, yes.

I said, what am I going to do?

She goes, you're going to go to the park.

I said, yes, I'm going to go to the park.

This is great.

and you're going to learn how to sing, and you're going to learn piano.

I was like, oh, okay.

I didn't realize she meant four to five hours a day.

Oh, my God.

My piano teacher showed up, and it was a Russian woman called

Alla, who didn't speak much English and used to speak to me in Russian.

She realized very quickly that in order, because I couldn't read music and I still can't, I would sing, she would sing to me and I would sing it back and then I'd be able to play it.

And so she would say, oh, well, if you can sing...

Why don't we just start singing?

And I started to sing Schubert and Russian songs, German songs.

And then I started working.