George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou on June 25, 1963 in East Finchley, London, England) is an English pop musician of English/Greek Cypriot ancestry. Michael began his career by forming a band called The Executive together with his best friend Andrew Ridgeley, a fellow pupil at Bushey Meads School, though it did not survive for long. It wasn’t until he formed the duo Wham! together again with Ridgeley in 1981 that the success came for the band. Their first album, Fantastic!, was an instant success, and within a year they had released their classic debut single, Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do), while their second single, Young Guns (Go For It), became the first in a string of Top 10 hits in the UK singles chart.
