Following promotional work for the second Kid Creole and the Coconuts album Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, Darnell gave an interview to the UK music magazine Melody Maker in December 1981 in which he spoke enthusiastically of the forthcoming solo album he was planning called Wise Guy, and told the magazine about three songs he already had written for the record titled "I'm a Wonderful Thing", "Stool Pigeon" (originally titled "Jive Talking") and "Imitation".

"[5] The same article also interviewed Darnell's long-time friend and musical director in the Coconuts, Andy "Coati Mundi" Hernandez, where he expressed his own grievances and feelings of being left out of the recording process: "The Kid Creole album that's coming out, I wasn't originally involved in it.

[4] "Imitation" was Darnell's response to people who were constantly telling him about new British bands they felt were ripping off Kid Creole's music, and also a riposte to ZE label boss Michael Zilkha who had told him to write something less obviously Latin-sounding and "more funky": "As I explained to Zilkha later I'd been inspired by funk, just like I'd been inspired by salsa, but you don't find me writing pure cha-cha's or pure reggae because why should I do that? ...

"[4] "Stool Pigeon" was inspired by a newspaper article Darnell had read about a former Mafia boss who had been let out of jail after providing information about his former colleagues, and had now had his identity changed and protected by the FBI.

"[4] The song also features Darnell's attempt at the then newly fashionable art of rapping—he later confessed, "That's just me goofing at being a rapper, which was the last thing I ever wanted to do".

The band also undertook a tour of the UK and Europe which lasted several months, and consisted of a spectacular stage show that included dancers, black Japanese Al Mack, and a fire-eater named Eddie Magic.

The album was reissued in Europe on CD in 2002 with six bonus tracks of rare 12" versions and B-sides, notably "Double on Back" from the flipside of the "Stool Pigeon" 12" release.

In the UK, Gavin Martin of NME complained that "there's a feeling of going through the motions on many of the songs, playing out scenes and sending up manners and mores in an almost identikit fashion.

"[10] However, in Melody Maker Paolo Hewitt was more positive, saying, "Gone is the musical exotica of Fresh Fruit ..., the last LP, to be replaced by a leaner, harder sound, characterised by an emphasis on percussion and rhythm guitar ... Far from being a collection of 'dull, insipid disco songs', as Sounds would have it, this album is packed with wit, humour, tunes and a clear sense of direction.

"[11] In The Guardian, Robin Denselow noted that there were fewer influences from Latin or Caribbean music than on the band's previous album Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, and instead more emphasis on "straightforforward R&B and jangling funk".