Folk music incorporates multiple influences in a syncretic fashion, including English contredanse, polka and mazurka, French folk and pop, sega from Mauritius and Réunion, taarab, zouk, soukous moutya and other pan-African genres of and Polynesian, Indian and Arcadian music.
Written in the first person, the book deals with the life of a young man, Msanifu Kombo who is born in Tanga, Tanzania and who faces family hardships with his single mother, who is a talented singer of taarab.