“I think he’s a fantastic songwriter,” said Campbell on the phone from England. “I’m constantly looking for songs that I can cover in reggae. I’m always looking for good songs, and Kris Kristofferson writes great songs.”

UB40 featuring Ali Campbell returns to Maui on Friday performing at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, with Ekolu opening.

“Unprecedented” was the last album Campbell recorded with UB40’s founding member Astro before he passed. It included some original songs and also featured covers of Stevie Wonder’s “Do Yourself a Favor” and Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.”

“We wrote some of them and did some covers,” Campbell explained. “It was fantastic that we could actually get out to Jamaica because it was during Covid. It was at the end of the lockdowns, and we managed to get out to Jamaica for 11 days and finish recording.”

The title track was all about the lockdown’s impact referencing loss of liberty, confusion and “politicians lied.” “We’ve done a lot of tracks about lying politicians,” he said. “Unprecedented was the word that was bandied about by all the newscasters in America and in England. Everything was unprecedented that was happening.”

Busy promoting reggae across the globe, last year Campbell performed in Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa and India. “We play all around the world,” he said. “Me and my band have been to over 70 countries. We’re going to be playing a couple of shows in Hawaii, and then we’re off to New Zealand and Australia. We’re the most traveled band in UK pop history. I love doing it. I’ve been doing it for a long time now. We’re very lucky that we’ve got a worldwide fan base.”

The lead singer of the world’s most successful reggae band, heard on a stream of hits from “Red Red Wine,” “I Got You Babe” (with Chrissie Hynde) and “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)” to “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” and “Rat in Me Kitchen,” Campbell was exposed to reggae from a young age.

“I grew up in a place in Birmingham, which was predominantly Asian and West Indian,” he recalled. “I grew up with reggae just like the black kids in my area did, and I also grew up listening to Indian music as well. But reggae was the music that I loved more than anything, and I was considered a bit of an oddity. I thought everybody loved reggae until I went to secondary school, and all the kids were listening to Mark Bolan. I was just seen as an odd kid listening to strange music.”

Reggae and its precursor, ska, became popular in the UK from the mid-’60s on with regional hits like Desmond Dekker’s “Israelites.” “It was a great time. That’s why we did the ‘Labour of Love’ series. People were going, ‘what are you playing that Caribbean music for?’ The perfect answer was, well, why don’t we cover all the fantastic songs that made us love reggae in the first place. That’s what the ‘Labour of Love’ series was all about.”

Released in 1983, the first “Labour of Love” album featured their biggest hit, “Red Red Wine,” originally composed by Neil Diamond. In the summer of 2023, UB40’s version of the song surpassed half a billion streams on Spotify.

When the musicians covered “Red Red Wine,” they were only familiar with a reggae version by Jamaican singer Tony Tribe, and had no idea it was composed by the American star. “Didn’t have a clue,” said Campbell. “We knew it by Tony Tribe. It was an early ska number we remembered growing up. When we were covering it and looking at publishing, it said N. Diamond. We thought, you know, Neville or Negus. We didn’t think it could be Neil Diamond.”

Since it became a massive hit for the British band, Diamond adopted their reggae arrangement in concert. “Live he does a little reggae version, and he does a toast (rap) at the end,” said Campbell. “The lyrics go, ‘red red wine makes me feel so good, even if the words aren’t understood.’ He couldn’t understand what Astro was saying. Neither could we.”

Asked if he was looking forward to coming back to Maui, Campbell said, “I’ve been watching what happened, so it’s strange to say looking forward. I love Maui. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. I’m not looking forward to seeing the devastation that happened. It’s awful. I know Lahaina well. We’ve been going to Maui since the ’80s.”

Campbell recalled his surprise at discovering the popularity of reggae in the islands the first time UB40 toured here.

“We were very pleasantly surprised. There was a maid in the hotel in my room and she said, ‘Do you know why you’re popular here?’ I said, no, tell me. She goes, ‘because we love reggae.’ She said ‘there’s a lot of Hawaiian reggae,’ and we weren’t aware of that. Things have changed massively, and now you get sort of homegrown reggae in most places. But at that time, Hawaii was like one of the only places other than Jamaica, of course, and England, where reggae was being made. A big love to everybody there.”

UB40 featuring Ali Campbell with special guest Ekolu perform on Friday in the MACC’s A&B Amphitheater and Yokouchi Pavilion. Gates open at 5 p.m., show begins at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $49, and $89 for VIP, all general admission plus applicable fees. Prices go up the day of show. Tickets are available at mauiarts.org.