R&B Artist Overcomes Blindness & Family Trauma to Release New Single

After years of overcoming blindness in one eye, family violence and personal struggles, Bronx-born R & B artist Bright Day is releasing his new single, “Brand New,”.  His talent has already attracted the backing of DJ DonDada formerly of VH1’s Black Ink Crew and the attention of a major veteran entertainment publicist. 

“Brand New, a feel-good banger, came from an ordinary moment. One night, Bright Day had a melody running through his head when he noticed a nearby box containing a pair of new shoes. The feeling associated with something fresh, clean and flawless sparked an idea. What if he could use that same feeling to describe a woman?

That thought developed into “Brand New,” a smooth, flirtatious and confident record celebrating a woman who captures attention from head to toe. Beyond physical attraction, the song is about admiration and making someone feel as good as she looks.

The single is his latest triumph in a journey that has not been easy

He learned early that life was tough. 

Born Eric Bright, he grew up legally blind in one eye. But rather than allowing his disability to define what he could do, he kept it largely to himself, including while playing basketball.

“Blind in one eye was my little secret,” Bright Day says. “I never wanted to make excuses. Just played on.”

The secret was only one part of a childhood marked by far more than a physical limitation.

At home, Bright Day says, his father was a functioning alcoholic whose drinking was accompanied by anger and violence. As the middle child, and the sibling who felt different from the others, Bright Day describes himself as more active, more rebellious and caught somewhere between the streets and the life he knew he wanted.

He says he became the target of his father’s drunken beatings.

“Me being the middle child and much different than the other siblings, more active, halfway in the streets, halfway out, always in trouble, I got the brunt of the drunken beatings,” he recalls. “Some senseless, some made sense. Either way, for me it was hell on Earth living in the same home with my dad.”

The fighting didn’t stop at the front door.

“Unfathomable, constant anger, always fighting,” he says. “Whether inside the house or outside the house, whether outside on the streets or inside my mind, constant war.”

Somewhere inside that constant war, however, there was music.

At 10 years old, Bright Day discovered the power a song could have over a room. He began writing songs before he fully understood that he could sing them. By 18, he had management and had already decided that music was not simply a childhood fantasy.

The dream survived everything else.

And that may be the most important thing to understand about Bright Day.

He didn’t emerge from his childhood with a neatly packaged inspirational story. He came out of it carrying scars, contradictions and questions about where he belonged. Basketball, music and the streets all became part of his journey as he tried to figure out who he was and what he could become.

Music eventually gave him a place to put all of it.

His influences range from Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown to Stevie Wonder, George Michael and Phil Collins. But Bright Day isn’t trying to recreate the past. He is building contemporary R&B around melody, romance and the emotional experiences that shaped him.

His stage name, a play on his given name, Eric Bright, is itself a statement about what he believes.

“The dark nights are part of what make a bright day mean something,” he says.

Now that belief is being tested in a very different arena: the music business.

Bright Day has attracted the attention of veteran entertainment publicist Lynn Hobson of Hobson PR, whose career has included publicity work for major names including Dipset, Mike Tyson, Gucci Mane, Rasheeda and Sister Souljah.

For an independent artist still introducing himself to a national audience, having someone with Hobson’s industry résumé recognize his potential is significant.

But Hobson says what drew her to Bright Day wasn’t simply a song.

“Bright Day represents the type of artist whose story is just as important as the music,” Hobson says. “He has experienced life, he has faced challenges and he is still choosing to pursue something that has been in his heart since he was a child.”

That persistence is precisely what separates Bright Day’s story from another independent artist hoping for a breakthrough.

There is no overnight success story here.

There is a man who spent years navigating blindness in one eye without wanting special treatment. A child who grew up in a home filled with alcohol, anger and violence. A young man who struggled to find his place. And an artist who kept returning to the same dream even when life gave him plenty of reasons to walk away from it.

Now, at a stage in his life when giving up might have been easier, Bright Day is moving forward.

And he’s doing it with a song that sounds nothing like the darkness he describes.

The man singing about love and attraction is someone who grew up surrounded by conflict. The artist celebrating something new spent years trying to get beyond what happened in his past.

That tension is part of what makes Bright Day’s story worth watching.

He is also building beyond the new single.

A self-published author, Bright Day wrote Eyes Wide Open, a romance with a superhero-inspired concept. He is developing a documentary connected to his music, with ambitions to eventually expand into short-form narrative film. A follow-up single, “Love Will Reign,” is also on the way.

And then there are the dreams.

Bright Day would love to collaborate with Mariah Carey, work with producer Mark Ronson and, one day, perform at Yankee Stadium.

For someone who has spent much of his life fighting battles most people never saw, those ambitions aren’t simply about fame.

They’re about refusing to let circumstances write the final chapter.

“Brand New” may be the song introducing Bright Day to a wider audience. But the bigger story is the man who refused to stop believing that our own bright days are always possible.

“Brand New” is now available on all major streaming and digital music platforms. Follow him on Instagram @TheRealBrightDay.

Article by Jazmyn Summers.   You can hear Jazmyn every morning on “Jazmyn in the Morning “on Sirius XM Channel 362 Grown Folk Jamz.  Subscribe to Jazmyn Summers’ YouTube. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.