These days, Boston music fans can go out almost any night of the week to hear a band playing music from the Caribbean, Africa, South America or the Middle East.
Two or three decades ago, catching those sounds live was as rare as a Red Sox sweep of the Yankees.
Credit King Sunny Ade, who helped make Boston one of the United States’ world-music capitals. The Hub is now a must-stop city for world music acts, whether it’s a Bulgarian folk ensemble or throat singers from Siberia.
The Afropop superstar and scion of a Nigerian royal family earned the nickname the Minister of Enjoyment for his lilting, groove-driven juju music. Wednesday at a sold-out show at the Museum of Fine Arts, he and his nearly 20-member African Beats troupe of musicians and dancers will reprise the spirited party vibe they created in the early- and mid-1980s at venues from the Bradford hotel ballroom to the Hynes Convention Center.
Ade (pronounced Ah-day) has appeared in town sporadically since then, but those sold-out shows and the buzz they generated helped confirm there was an audience for exotic, non-Western sounds and laid the groundwork for other world musicians to book shows in the Boston area.
So why hasn’t Ade returned more often?
“Please ask my manager,” he said with a laugh on a tour bus en route to Chicago. “I’ll come more often. I want everyone around the world to enjoy juju music.”
Juju - which means magic in Nigerian - as played by Ade and the African Beats is an electrified version of a traditional, acoustic Yoruban music. It’s characterized by frenzied talking drums fueling a beat shot through with electric guitars and twanging, pedal steel attacks.
Ade has released more than 120 albums in the course of his career, but none of his recent ones have made it to the States.A reissue of his bright, sizzling “Seven Degrees North,” recorded nearly a decade ago, just became available.
That album includes more than a few references to living a righteous life and respecting God, themes that Ade, 62, says have become more important to him as he’s gotten older.
“Being moral is the right way to live life,” he said. “When I’m singing, I’m talking about what you do today is a reflection on you tomorrow. Don’t be superficial or do drugs or get into prostitution. Yes, enjoy life, but still respect your parents and God. That’s my belief.
“I believe in having a good time and I also believe in peace and in harmony.”
