Oksana Stefanivna Grytsay, better known as Mika Newton, is a Ukrainian singer and actress. She taught herself to sing at an early age by imitating famous artists she heard on the radio. She began begging her mother to invite friends over so she could have an audience to perform in front of. After seeing Michael Jackson performing on TV, she decided she wanted to be a performer and quickly enrolled in performing arts school where she studied voice, piano, acting, dance and pantomime. She continued to compete in both local and international talent competitions, taking first place in nearly every one of them.
At the age of 16, she moved from her hometown of Burshtyn to Kiev, where she studied out of the Vocal Department at the College of Circus and Variety Arts. While attending a performing arts school as a teenager, she continued to compete in local and international talent contests, taking first place at nearly all of them, which led to attention from music industry players, at the age of 16 she got signed with the record label Falyosa Family Factory. Her first name, Mika, is a derivative from Mick Jagger's first name and Newton stands for a new tone.
Before Eurovision, she went on to release two albums and, thanks to providing theme songs to a number of popular Ukrainian and Russian films and television shows, earned herself the nickname, the “Queen of Soundtracks.” It wasn’t long before she drew interest from JK Music Group. They invited her to Los Angeles for a two-week recording session with legendary songwriter Walter Afanasieff. She also got the opportunity to perform in front of Grammy Award-winning producer Randy Jackson.
She was selected to represent her home country in Düsseldorf with her song Angel, finishing in fourth place overall in the final. After the Contest, she signed a contract with JK Music Group and Randy Jackson's Friendship Collective. In June 2011 she moved to Los Angeles, where she started developing her music career as a pop-rock singer. As of 2014, she has released several US singles and performed at numerous venues.
