The jukebox musical, I have smugly opined, is the lowest form of theater.

Well, if “Fela!” is a jukebox musical, I hereby change my tune.

This touring Broadway show, which is at Tempe’s ASU Gammage for two nights only, is about Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. In the 1970s he fused traditional rhythms and melodies with American jazz and funk to create the Afrobeat sound. And like his contemporaries Bob Marley and John Lennon, he used both his music and his celebrity as platforms for political protest.

Director, choreographer and co-book writer Bill T. Jones – a modern-dance stalwart who also choreographed Broadway’s “Spring Awakening” – shapes this narrative in seemingly conventional ways. For instance, there’s a standard-issue framing device, a concert at the Afrika Shrine club in Lagos where Fela, played by the magnetic Adesola Osakalumi, tells the crowd this will be his final performance in his homeland.

Shaken by the recent death of his mother, he is ready to leave his corrupt and terrorized nation for good. But first he has a show do to do, and he works the crowd like a pro, breaking down the Afrobeat sound for the uninitiated and then getting 2,000-plus Gammage-goers on their feet for a mandatory dance lesson based on the 12 stops on the clock. (Hint: 6 o’clock-12 o’clock is the naughty move.)

With an onstage band of drums, guitar, bass and horns and a phenomenal ensemble of foot-stomping, booty-shaking dancers, “Fela!” is one of those rare rock musicals that delivers rock-concert energy. But as the story slowly unwinds to its climax, the show also packs the kind of dramatic punch that’s rare in this cookie-cutter age of Broadway musicals.

What sets “Fela!” apart is not the form but the content. First there’s the music. Unlike the tightly contained pop tunes you’ll hear in “Mamma Mia!” or “Jersey Boys,” Kuti’s Afrobeat compositions are sprawling rhythmic jams designed not to get your toes tapping but your hips grooving. And unlike the lyrics of traditional book musicals, the words, mostly unrhymed pidgin English, express bigger concerns than defining character or furthering plot.

“Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go,” Fela sings in a hit song about the soldiers who are just following orders. “Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think.”

Finally, there’s the very real drama of Kuti’s life story. In “Jersey Boys,” one of the highlights of the story of how Franki Valli loses his virginity (“December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)”). In “Fela!,” the climax comes in the form of a silent shock when the music stops and the violence of the Nigerian military dictatorship is revealed in all its bestial horror.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a little lustiness, and “Fela!” in fact has more than its share. The female dancers, after all, represent Kuti’s 27 wives, and that’s not counting his Black Power muse from America (passably portrayed by Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child fame).

But the power of this jukebox musical is that it’s more than just a VH1 “Behind the Music” episode. It’s a feel-good show in the best sense, because it emphatically affirms that the best answer to the forces of destruction is the impulse to create.

Now, get on your feet and dance.