ArTEEtude: Art, culture and the creative mind. Never so close again. - with Detlef Schlich

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SHOW / EPISODE

#Arteetude 333 - Detlef Schlich speaks directly with Dirk Schlömer, his Berlin-based collaborator in WAW – Wild Atlantic Way, about their new single AfricaSmile.

Season 1 | Episode 333

39m | May 10, 2026

For this episode, Sophia steps aside. No AI Co-Host, no mediated interview frame — just a direct artist-to-artist dialogue about the long journey of a song that began with early vocal recordings in West Cork, travelled back and forth between Kilcrohane, Adrigole and Berlin, and slowly found its final shape through musical exchange, disagreement, patience, trust and shared imagination.

AfricaSmile follows the Nile as an imagined journey from its sources towards the Mediterranean Sea in less than five minutes. But the Nile is never only water. It is memory, geography, myth, rhythm, history and movement. In the song, the White Nile and the Blue Nile become a powerful image of cooperation: two different currents meeting, continuing together and becoming one force.

That image is beautiful — but also painful. The two Niles meet in Khartoum, a city marked today by war, destruction and human suffering. For Detlef and Dirk, AfricaSmile is therefore not a naïve peace anthem and not a political analysis. It is a wounded image of hope: a musical gesture that asks whether cooperation can still become stronger than violence.

The conversation moves through the realities of twenty-first-century music-making: remote collaboration, home recording, vocal layering, technical obstacles, earworms, old tape machines, digital plug-ins, live performance memories and the strange exhaustion of trying to bring a song from ninety percent to ninety-five percent. Along the way, Detlef and Dirk reflect on how artistic work grows through persistence, humour and the willingness to listen to one another.

The episode ends with the new WAW single AfricaSmile — a song about rivers, rhythm, cooperation and the fragile possibility that the Nile may still carry the memory of a smile.

Lyrics -

AfricaSmile

Verse 1

Murmurs of history, in currents that flow,

From Uganda’s embrace, to Sudan’s glow.

A white giant, in quiet defiance,

Carves through the heartlands, a path of reliance.

Chorus 1

(We see) The dance of the nature, a symphony wild,

Feeding souls, both elder and child.

A lifeline through deserts, dry and vast,

The White Nile’s promise, forever to last.

Verse 2

From Ethiopian highlands, so rugged and bold,

A river bursts forth, ancient and cold.

Carrying silt, life’s fertile dust,

The Blue Nile surges with a primal lust.

Chorus 2

(We see) The dance of the nature, a symphony wild,

Feeding souls, both elder and child.

A lifeline from silt and fertile dust.

The Blue Nile’s promise, forever to last.

Bridge

(chorus) We sing it by the water

In Khartoum’s embrace, my dear,

(chorus) We sing it to each other

waters weave a tale,

(chorus) We sing it by the water

White and Blue in a dance,

(chorus & lead) where peace prevails.

“I wish,”

(chorus) humming

this ritual could teach us all,

To find us united and let divisions fall.

Solo

Chorus 3

We see the dance of the nature, a symphony wild,

Feeding souls, both elder and child.

“I wish,” this dance could unite mile by mile,

The Nile, oh the Nile, would be Africa’s smile.

Outro / Repetition Section

Mile by mile by mile.

Mile by mile would be Africa’s smile.

Mile by mile by mile,

Mile by mile would be Africa’s smile.

Mile by mile by mile.

Mile by mile would be Africa’s smile.

Detlef Schlich is a rock musician, podcaster, visual artist, filmmaker,

ritual designer, and media archaeologist based in West Cork. He is recognised for his seminal work, including a scholarly examination of the intersections between shamanism, art, and digital culture, and his acclaimed video installation, Transodin's Tragedy. He primarily works in performance, photography, painting, sound, installations, and film. In his work, he reflects on the human condition and uses the digital shaman's methodology as an alter ego to create artwork. His media archaeology is a conceptual and practical exercise in uncovering the unique aesthetic, cultural, and political aspects of media in culture.

WEBSITE LINKS

WAW Official YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/@WAWBand

From the forthcoming WAW album

The Stories of Nil Young

Two songs from WAW’s developing album project The Stories of Nil Young — a mythopoetic journey along the Nile, where river, memory, loss, cooperation and hope flow into music.

AfricaSmile

AfricaSmile follows the Nile as an imagined journey from its sources to the Mediterranean Sea — a river of memory, movement, rhythm and myth.The song turns the meeting of the White Nile and the Blue Nile into a fragile image of cooperation. It is not a naïve peace anthem, but a wounded musical hope: two different currents meeting, listening, and still moving forward together.

The Niles Bittersweet Song

The Nile’s Bittersweet Song is the first official single by WAW / Wild Atlantic Way — Detlef Schlich and Dirk Schlömer.

The song follows the Nile as a river of memory, beauty, loss and contradiction: a life-giver, but also a force that can take away what it once nourished. Through the story of Kamau, it becomes a poetic reflection on childhood, fragile hope, and the emotional landscape carried by a river that is both kind and cruel.

Inspired by East African storytelling traditions and shaped along the Wild Atlantic Way in West Cork, The Nile’s Bittersweet Song is a mythopoetic musical journey about water, grief, resilience, and the deep human longing to keep moving with the current.