A five year old sat down at a piano on a busy street in California and sang a Lauren Daigle song that stops grown adults in their tracks.
That boy is Nicholas Protsenko, the youngest brother of viral violinist Karolina Protsenko. If you’ve spent any time on YouTube you probably already know Karolina. She’s the Ukrainian born teen who has been busking on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica since she was a kid, and she’s built an audience of millions doing it.
Her family moved to the United States from Ukraine back in 2015 and music has been part of their life ever since. Both parents Ella and Nikolay Protsenko are classically trained musicians and they raised their kids the same way, one instrument at a time. Nicholas grew up watching his sister perform on that same street corner and it clearly rubbed off on him.
In this video he’s the one at the keys, in a light blue shirt, playing a full sized keyboard like he’s done it a hundred times. He picked “You Say,” written by Lauren Daigle back in 2018 for her album Look Up Child. It’s not an easy song for a kid to take on honestly, the melody moves around a lot and it needs real control to sing well. I was amazed to see how well he played it on the keyboard without stumbling once.
Daigle wrote it with Jason Ingram and Paul Mabury during a season when she was feeling overwhelmed and unsure of herself, and it went on to spend over two years at number one on the Christian charts, which is a record. It won Song of the Year at the Dove Awards in 2019 too.
The message behind it is one a lot of us need reminding of honestly. So many of us go through life hearing voices, our own or someone else’s, telling us we’re not enough. This song is basically saying that what God says about us matters more than any of that. We are loved even when we don’t feel it. We are strong even in the moments we feel weak.
WATCH: Nicholas Protsenko Sings Lauren Daigle’s ‘You Say’ on Busy Street
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