Today we’d like to introduce you to Mika Mutti.
Hi Mika, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
My story with music starts when I was three years old. I don’t know why, but my mom had the feeling that his baby boy would be a musician, and all my toys and all decoration of my baby room was made by music instruments and music paintings, and pictures. The main musical influence in my family came from my grandmother. The mother of my mom was a self-taught piano player, all lifelong. Her family didn’t have money to buy her a piano; she just had two accordion classes when she was seven, and she talked to her family: listen, I know you guys can’t buy me a piano. That is no problem. I don’t want to go to the accordion classes anymore. Then she started to play on her imaginary piano that she used to draw on a table when she was around 10 years old, she got a real Piano and started to play right away. I was her only grandson that she allowed to touch her piano because somehow, she felt like my mom that I was super open to learn music. My parents and my family have always supported me, and at six years old, I started to take acoustic guitar classes of bossa nova and Brazilian popular music, besides the piano, which, like my grandmother, I was learning by myself without any teacher. When I was 12 years old, I started to play on professional bands; we used to play Brazilian Carnaval music. It is worth it to say that my city, Salvador de Bahia, has one of the most powerful African influences out of Africa because we were the first capital city in Brazil. The carnival culture is one of the strongest in Brazil, and we could be considered the city with the biggest street carnival in the world. The percussion is something that is part of my life since always as well and on that little bands that I became a professional musician. My dad worked with computers all his life, and it was a matter of time for me to be interested in the digital world associated with music. I started to study music production, and I started to record albums in small studios when I was 17, always playing live performances here and there. I love both worlds and I can’t pick just the studio or just the stage. When I was 20 years old, I had played with big artists of my city, I was invited to be part of the cast of arrangers for the biggest recording studio in my home town, WR studios, where I connected to some of the biggest names in Brazil at that time. Daniela Mercury, which is a Lm amazing singer that has a lot of international tours since the late 90’s, invited me to tour with her on Europe and here in USA, that was in 96. After performing on some of the biggest world music/jazz festivals around the world, I connected to other huge songwriter/artist from Bahia, Carlinhos Brown, which is one of the main partners of Sergio Mendes. I started to tour with him in 2003, again at some of the biggest jays in world music festivals around the world. In 2008, Carlinhos Brown gave me a call: “Mika, I’m at the studio with Sergio Mendes, and I need somebody to write charts for him. Are you willing to come?” it took literally a heartbeat to say yes. When I started to play piano in front of him and to write his music charts, we connected right away. That’s the typical story of an idol that becomes your close friend. Since then, I have produced and recorded all his studio works, and I had the chance to tour with him, Gracinha Leporace, and his amazing band last year of 2023. In 2010, he talked to me and to Carlinhos Brown during the recording of one of his albums here in Los Angeles: “Hey guys, we might record a soundtrack for an animation. It will be called Rio, and it’s directed by Carlos Saldanha”. Wow! That would be huge, we thought. Personally, I thought it wouldn’t go further, but after a couple of months, Fox Film’s team called us to arrange everything to start the soundtrack with Sergio Mendes and John Powell! That was a dream coming true. Our chemistry in the studio was something magical, and we wrote almost 12 songs together. The main one was the opening song, which was Oscar-nominated in 2012 for Best Original Song. After working with Sergio Mendes all this years, I decided to move to California in 2017. I made a Brazilian Jazz album called” Pacific Feelings,” and I’m finishing a new album with my songs and lyrics in Portuguese. I also have a new Bossa Nova project mixed with electronic percussion.
During my musical life, I started to mix my African Roots, my percussion universe, with electronic music. In 2006 I started to play Percussion with video game controllers, tablets, digital instruments and I’ve developed a way of playing digital percussion through this gadgets that have a unique flavor. I was touring with Sergio Mendes’ band last year in 2023, where I could play a cuica, a pandeiro, or a whole Escola de Samba (school of Samba) together with his amazing musicians.
After almost 40 years of my life (I am 49 now), I can say that music has taken me much further than I’ve imagined. 28 countries, working side-by-side with names like the Heavy Metal band Scorpions, Carlos Santana, John Legend, Common, Jamie Foxx, Will I Am, Carlinhos Brown, Daniela Mercury, Flora Purim, Ana Carolina, Seu Jorge, Paula Toller, Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, New Matogrosso, Frejat, Hermeto Pascoal, João Donato, Maria Gadú and Lenine, amongst others.
Music is definitely my life, and I hope I can share my gift to the world as long as I can.
For this amazing gift, these amazing people that I could work with, the amazing listeners and supporters of my art since always, I only have one word to say:
Obrigado!
Which means, Thank you in Portuguese.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s not always smooth, we know that. To be an artist and make it your job is something challenging. For me, the most struggling moments on my career were fighting against the music industry injustices. It’s a world where if You don’t take care of yourself, companies, managers, and artists think about the musicians like simple tools to make them make money. Luckily, I always could figure out a way to get good and respectful deals for my music, and I connected to amazing artists that became my friends, but it’s definitely hard to manage this.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I think you have everything detailed on the first answer. I’m a musician / Composer/music producer. My main instruments are Piano/Keyboards/Acoustic Guitar/percussion and I play percussion through video game controllers and digital instruments.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
WR Studio in Brazil,
Daniela Mercury,
Carlinhos Brown,
Sergio Mendes. There’s also a name that it is worth it to be told: Alê Siqueira, one of the greatest music producers of Brazil of all time. He invited me to record with him with Iconic artists (Leila Pinheiro, Cheik Lô, Ana Carolina, amongst others), and he invited me to be the co-producer of the Olympic Ending Ceremony in Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikamuttimusic
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0BHhjeiAVrfr93t8wNiZ7q?si=HM3ZJOskRA2hPP3DLvFE0w
Image Credits
Mikael Mutti
