Dirksen's ethnography follows carnival in contemporary Haiti as a place where music and political power meet, and where ordinary citizens argue with celebrities about what the country should be.

A central thread is Michel Martelly, the konpa performer known as Sweet Micky, who declared himself president of the genre before winning the presidency of the republic, building a political persona that was inseparable from the musical one. Dirksen supplies the longer background to this: the traditions of carnivalesque wordplay and the particular performing repertoire, vulgarity and provocation included, that let Sweet Micky dominate carnival for over a decade.

That style of politics met sustained opposition from other prominent musicians. Matyas and Joj, Brothers Posse, Boukman Eksperyans and RAM all released carnival songs that fed public argument about civic participation and citizenship. Drawing on more than fifteen years of fieldwork, Dirksen gives extensive space to interviews with musicians and everyday Haitians, and reads performances against events well outside music.