‘Brightest Star’: Jerrika Mighelle Releases Heartfelt Video
local musician’s latest album explores grief, longing, and solace
Grief. Longing. Solace. Emotions – intense, yet heartfelt – are at the forefront of local musician Jerrika Mighelle's latest album Brightest Star, which dropped in February.
On May 7 – just in time for Mother's Day – Mighelle released a music video of the album’s title track, which processes the death of Mighelle’s mother 2016, channeling pain, anger, and loss into something touching, heartfelt, and heartbreaking all at once.
The response to its release was overwhelming: “A star is born again and again with you Jerrika! We love this! As if it were possible to love your song more,” commented Rachel Stack Baillargeon. “Congratulations and many thanks to you for sharing this piece of yourself with us! We are over the moon about Brightest Star!”
“Jerrika, I just saw your video Brightest Star for the first time, WOW! You are incredible! You pierced my heart. Keep going. Please...” commented Steven Christianson.
Others followed with “Beautiful!” “Love, love, love this song!” and “It’s perfect.”
The three minute and 38 second-long video, by Sarah and Erik Elstran and courtesy of Ivy Media, features ice skaters gliding through Eau Claire’s Boyd Park – a place Mighelle remembers spending time with her mother. “It was a place I skated as a kid and remember fondly how our mother would come once in a while with us, and how excited I was to share all my skating skills with her,” the musician recalled in an in-depth interview with Music Mecca. “She would share stories with us about how much she loved ice skating and missed it so much. Her body had posed limitations on her that kept her from doing it. So as she would watch us skate as kids, I feel she was living through us, in some way, reliving her childhood.”
Mighelle’s work reminds us of our own brightest stars: the people that make our lives better and brighter – whether that’s here on Earth or among the stars.
Read more about the album Brightest Star here. To learn more about Jerrika Mighelle and her music, visit www.jerrikamighelle.com.
