Like Spring Awakening in 2006 and Passing Strange in 2008, Fela! (* * * 1/2 out of four), which opened Monday at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, owes its electrifying score to artists who built their careers outside musical theater. In this case, they're the lavishly gifted Nigerian bandleader Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who died from AIDS complications in 1997, and the Brooklyn-based group Antibalas, among his numerous disciples.

If you're not familiar with those names – the show's biggest stars are producers Jay-Z, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith– you will be by the time Tony Award nominations are announced. You'll also be hearing a lot about Bill T. Jones, Fela!'s director, choreographer and co-librettist. Already a Tony winner for Awakening, Jones works with a different musical vocabulary here: Afrobeat, which Kuti pioneered by blending sounds of his native continent with jazz and R&B he absorbed while traveling.

Fela!'s choreography is, as a result, livelier and more sophisticated. Executed by a dynamic cast, it's the perfect companion to Kuti's supple tunes and pulsing grooves, served with virtuosity by a band conducted by Antibalas' Aaron Johnson. Delivering exuberant storytelling through song and dance, Fela! achieves something closer to the essence of great musicals than many more conventional shows have of late.

Fela! is set in the late '70s in Lagos, then Nigeria's capital, at the Shrine, Kuti's nightclub and sanctuary against a government whose corrupt and oppressive practices he assailed both as a lyricist and an activist. The title character – alternately played by Kevin Mambo and Sahr Ngaujah because of the physical and emotional intensity of the role – is offering one final show before leaving his country for greater freedom and richer opportunities.

Jones and co-writer Jim Lewis use flashbacks and creative license to depict Kuti's heroism and hedonism. At a preview, Ngaujah wittily relayed his fondness for women and marijuana, and engaged the audience with a rock star's feral charisma.

The violence and turmoil that informed Kuti's art and life also are reflected. Kuti's late mother, played by Lillias White, appears in dreamy, spooky sequences that verge on histrionic in trying to capture the drama and majesty of African spirituality.

But that's a minor quibble. Fela! earns its exclamation point, joyfully and relentlessly.

Enlarge By Monique Carboni Catherine Foster, left, Sahr Ngaujah and Nicole de Weever star in the Broadway production of Fela!.