[8][9] In an interview Vanity Fair Italia the singers explained the collaboration:[10] "We are glad to be there, that people can tie their memories to one of our pieces.

We come from ups and downs, we know how it works: today it's our turn and we enjoy the moment, tomorrow who knows".Alessandro Alicandri of TV Sorrisi e Canzoni described the song as musically different from the previous "Taxi sulla Luna" collaboration with Emma Marrone, finding it more akin to samba music, on which Effe sets "a lyric that mixes singing and speaking that seems to echo 1960s swing songs".

[12] In a less positive review Andrea Laffranchi of Corriere della Sera wrote that the song comes across musically with "sensuality, Brazilian mood even if it is not samba in purity" and a lyric "with minimal vocabulary," finding it "precisely constructed" but where nevertheless "spontaneity is lost."

Laffranchi questioned "where the balance lies between the past consciousness on issues such as feminism and inclusion of Gaia and the masculinist language of the former dark Polo Gang.

[14] "Sesso e samba" debuted at number ten on the Italian singles chart, becoming Tony Effe's fifth top-ten solo song and Gaia's third.