[3] It is reminiscent of Golliwogg's Cakewalk from his Children's Corner, a piano suite that he had composed a year earlier.

[4] The piece, marked allegro, begins with a first theme presenting "jazzy" syncopes in 24 time, in the then popular ragtime style.

[8] The Little Nigar was first published in 1909 by Éditions Alphonse Leduc in Paris as part of Lack's piano method and again as a single piece in about 1934, now with an added repetition and entitled The Little Negro, with subtitle Le petit nègre.

[3][2] Debussy also used the piece's main theme in his 1913 ballet for children, La boîte à joujoux, in which it characterises an English soldier.

[6][5] Numerous transcriptions have been made of the piece, including an arrangement for woodwinds that has been used for advertising Purina One dog food.