Enoch Sithole has one hope: that his son, Khuthala, will take over the family laundry. But this is 1968, and in apartheid South Africa, the state is systematically dismantling Black businesses. As the government tightens its grip, Enoch is forced to bend the rules to keep the laundry running. When those efforts backfire and he’s arrested, the burden falls to Khuthala.

But Khuthala wants no part of it. He’s made his position clear. The laundry is his father’s dream — not his. His heart belongs to music, to jazz, and to a band on the verge of touring the United States. He throws himself into chasing that dream, neglecting the business as it begins to unravel.

Still, Khuthala’s talent and drive earn the respect of the musicians, one of whom entrusts him with a set of banned recordings — songs that expose the brutal realities of life under apartheid. Then everything shifts.

After witnessing his father’s savage beating at the hands of prison guards, Khuthala is forced to see the system for what it truly is. In desperation, he trades the recordings for his father’s freedom — betraying his friends, and the very dream he was fighting for. But apartheid takes everything anyway. The family is left broken. The laundry is lost. And Khuthala, who once believed in music as salvation, is left to confront a world where the cost of survival is far too high.