He was born of a Roman Catholic father and a Protestant mother (who died when he was just age 14). In Dublin in 1977, he and school friends David Evans (later “the Edge”), Larry Mullen, Jr., and Adam Clayton formed a band that would become U2. They shared a commitment not only to ambitious rock music but also to a deeply spiritual Christianity. Indeed, one of the few genuine threats to U2's extraordinary longevity (a collaboration—with the manager, Paul McGuinness—of more than 30 years) occurred extremely early in the band's life when three of its members, including Bono, considered joining a Christian fellowship. Throughout U2's career, religiosity has infused the group's songwriting and performance.

Led by vocalist Bono, U2 gained popularity on a global scale that few musicians have ever experienced. After releasing a pair of generally well-received albums, the band broke through in 1983 with War and had even greater success with The Unforgettable Fire in 1984. The next year, the band was approached by Jack Healy, head of Amnesty International USA, and was asked to join the “Conspiracy of Hope” tour to bring attention to human rights violations and encourage fans to fight them. Afterward Bono toured war-torn Nicaragua and El Salvador with groups seeking to help the victims of violence and poverty in those countries, and he grew increasingly interested in the plight of people in the less-developed world. His experiences informed the band's biggest-selling and most influential recording, The Joshua Tree (1987), which ranked 26th when Rolling Stone magazine selected its top 500 albums of all time in 2003. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004) became U2's sixth number one album, and by 2006 the group had sold some 150 million albums over its career.

Described by his close friend and U2 guitarist the Edge as the “chairman and founding member of Over-Achievers Anonymous, with an irrepressible lust to be great and a lust for life,” Bono decided, after participating in various benefits for humanitarian causes with other musicians, to deploy his fame and the access it brought to world leaders to commit himself to a second career as a global politician without portfolio. Dividing his time between fronting his remarkably durable band and meeting with presidents, prime ministers, economists, ministers, scientists, and philanthropists, Bono eventually helped found in 2002 Debt AIDS Trade Africa (DATA), a policy and advocacy organization that seeks to eradicate poverty, hunger, and the spread of AIDS in Africa through public awareness campaigns and in-country partnerships. That year he appeared on the cover of Time magazine with the legend “Can Bono Save the World?”

Despite his success at raising awareness, Bono has been criticized by many in the aid community for his willingness to work with leaders whom many progressives consider to be anathema (particularly Pres. George W. Bush (Bush, George W.)) in order to try to secure additional money for AIDS programs and debt relief for impoverished African countries. Bono's most high-profile trip occurred in May 2002 when he traveled throughout Africa with U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, an excursion the Washington Post called a potential beginning of a “momentous…alliance between liberals and conservatives to launch a fresh assault on global poverty.” Writing in the New York Times, James Traub characterized Bono as both “a kind of one-man state who fills his treasury with the global currency of fame” and “an emanation of the celebrity culture.”

Akan state (Akan states) of West Africa from the 15th to the 18th century, located between the forests of Guinea and the savannas of The Sudan in what is now Brong-Ahafo Region in the Republic of Ghana.

Bono was probably founded about 1450, and its rise was undoubtedly connected with the developing gold trade of Bighu, a Malian Muslim or Dyula commercial centre 40 miles (64 km) to the northwest. From there Muslim traders came to Bono soon after its foundation, and many members of the royal household were later converted to Islam.

The kings of Bono are said to have played a major role in the gold-mining industry: both Obunumankoma (fl. c. 1450–75) and ʿAlī Kwame (fl. c. 1550–60) are thought to have introduced new mining techniques from the western Sudan to the Akan fields, and Owusu Aduam (fl. c. 1650) is reported to have completely reorganized the industry. From the Akan fields the gold passed through the entrepôts of the western Sudan along the trade routes of the Sahara to the terminal ports of North Africa and from there to Europe and elsewhere. Bono engaged in wars with Jakpa (Jakpa, Sumalia Ndewura) of Gonja and was finally subjugated in 1722–23 by Opoku Ware of the Asante empire.