Ben recorded the album alongside producer Manoel Barenbein, the vocal/percussion band Trio Mocotó, and an orchestral section arranged by José Briamonte and Rogério Duprat.

He incorporated psychedelic and soul music for this lively recording, while his quirky lyrics dealt with everyday life, romances with women, Afro-Brazilian identity, and self-awareness.

Guido Alberi's iconic cover for the album also drew on psychedelic influences in its pop-art illustration of Ben and symbols of contemporary Brazilian culture.

In an effort to capitalize on the success, the label pressured Ben to hastily record follow-up albums of music in the same vein and cover songs as filler.

[1] Music critic Rodney Taylor identified the main elements of his lively samba-rock synthesis to be Trio Mocotó's accompaniment and the string arrangements of Briamonte and Duprat, resulting in "the kind of tropical psychedelia" attempted by contemporaries Gil, Veloso, and Os Mutantes.

Commenting on individual tracks, he compared "Descobri que Eu Sou um Anjo" to a "hard-rocking outtake" from the 1967 Love album Forever Changes and said that "Take It Easy My Brother Charles" incorporates funk to the overall sound.

[6] According to AllMusic's Thom Jurek, Briamonte and Duprat's arrangements on the album are essential to Ben's fusion of American soul music with the samba and Brazilian folk song structures from his past work.

[2] The website's Alvaro Neder adds that this album and Ben's follow-up Fôrça Bruta (1970) represent his involvement in Brazil's Tropicália cultural and musical movement.

According to Robert Leaver of Amoeba Music's international records department, the album "asserted Ben's identity with the confidence and exuberance of one who is comfortable in his own skin", particularly in its exploration of Afro-Brazilian perspectives.

"[10] Jorge Ben is strongly informed by African-American soul music's "ethos of racial pride, self-determination, and collective struggle", according to Brazilian culture scholar Christopher Dunn, who cited "Take It Easy My Brother Charles" as a prime example.

[10] Ben offers partly English-language words of caution to his "brother of color" in the song,[9] which Caz said expresses a contemporary ethos in an unconventional manner.

As a "magical realist portrait", the cover "mingles the important issues of the day, personal emblems, and symbols of his black Brazilian identity while employing decidedly uptempo pop illustration", he said.

As Jurek later wrote: While he was already an established veteran in Brazilian musical circles, he refused to align himself with either the Jovem Guarda or MPB movements because he found both camps willing to abandon samba in favor of popular styles from North America and England.

Reviewing for Brazil's leading news magazine in December 1969, music journalist Tárik de Souza argued that Ben had failed to project himself as a singer, composer, and guitarist.

He largely faulted Philips for disregarding the rhythmic appeal of Ben's past success by hiring Bríamonte, whose excessive preoccupation with melody and harmony resulted in orchestrations that suffocate the songs, although Duprat's few arrangements were seen as "magnificent".