Music producer Arnold Silverstein is desperate for a song hit so when the Devil - a woman - supplies him with the answer to his dreams, a piece called 'Demonella' he is anxious to fulfill his part of the deal, to give the Devil his mother's secret recipe for chicken soup to serve her celebrity guests in Hell.

In 1923 British Colonial Nigeria, Mister Johnson is an oddity -- an educated black man who doesn't really fit in with the natives or the British. He works for the local British magistrate, and considers himself English, though he has never been to England. He is always scheming, trying to get ahead, which lands him in a lot of hot water.