The album is a follow-up to the 1996 "Red Hot + Rio". Proceeds from the sales will be donated to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS, HIV and related health and social issues. Remaining true to the experimental and Dada impulses of Tropicália, Zé has been noted for both his unorthodox approach to melody and instrumentation, employing various objects as instruments such as the typewriter. He has collaborated with many of the concrete poets of São Paulo, including Augusto de Campos, and employed concrete techniques in his lyrics. Musically, his work appropriates samba, Bossa Nova, Brazilian folk music, "forró", and American rock and roll, among others. He has been praised by avant-garde composers for his use of dissonance, polytonality, and unusual time signatures. Because of the experimental nature of many of his compositions, Zé has been compared with American musicians such as Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. One of his last efforts, though, has been a return to Bossa Nova, his "Estudando a Bossa – Nordeste Plaza". Says Zé: "That music has inhabited my psyche for 50 to 60 years. Familiar and profound, yet somehow extraterrestrial in my mind. It had to come out, to be dealt with."