The band has sold millions of records worldwide and is known for international hits including "Daddy Cool", "Ma Baker", "Belfast", "Sunny", "Rasputin", "Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl in the Ring", "Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord" and "Gotta Go Home".

Farian had created this pseudonym for himself after watching the Australian television detective series Boney,[3] whose main character was named Napoleon Bonaparte.

The group's big break came at the end of the summer of 1976 when West German television producer Michael "Mike" Leckebusch of Radio Bremen requested them for his show Musikladen.

Boney M. appeared on the live music show on 18 September 1976, after 10:00 p.m. and in their daring stage costumes, where they performed the song "Daddy Cool".

The group's popularity had also grown throughout Europe, with "Daddy Cool" reaching no.‍1 in Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France, and Austria.

[6] The band's live sound was also augmented by several backing vocalists, which served to mitigate any vocal deficiencies the group may have had compared with the studio productions.

Later in the year they released their fourth album, Oceans of Fantasy, containing two hit singles – "Gotta Go Home"/"El Lute" and "I'm Born Again"/"Bahama Mama".

When Boonoonoonoos was finally released by the end of that year, Bobby Farrell departed from the group due to issues with Frank Farian.

While still a healthy seller in continental Europe, Boonoonoonoos failed to crack the UK Top 100 after three consecutive no.‍1 albums due to the group being unable to promote it without Farrell.

In 1982 "Rasputin" was played by local broadcasters in Vietnam during the waiting periods before live games of the España 82 – the 1982 FIFA World Cup.

By 1985, Farian clearly began losing interest in the group, and their eighth and final studio album Eye Dance was widely regarded as uninspired and disappointing.

[9] From this point, different versions of the group were formed by members, some with cooperation of Farian, others without, for example by independently obtaining the rights to use the Boney M. name in a different country.

Mitchell and Williams completed a tour during 1987–88, adding singer Celena Duncan and Ron Gale as replacements for Barrett and Farrell.

In October 1988, the classic Boney M. line-up reunited without producer Frank Farian for the album Greatest Hits of All Times – Remix '88 but tensions ran high between the members, and Liz Mitchell left in the spring of 1989 to be replaced by Madeleine Davis.

While Mitchell promoted her solo album, the group recorded the single "Everybody Wants to Dance Like Josephine Baker", without Farian's knowledge or approval.

While Marcia Barrett, by then living in Florida, had cancer and was unable to perform, Boney M. toured the world with a line-up of Liz Mitchell, Carol Grey, Patricia Lorna Foster and Curt Dee Daran (replaced by Tony Ashcroft in 1994).

[12] As recounted in his 1988 book Touching the Void, the British climber Joe Simpson was subsequently to find the catchy tune of Brown Girl in the Ring haunting him in the final hours of his struggle to survive the descent of Siula Grande in the Andes, and the song was later used in the 2003 film of Touching the Void made by Kevin Macdonald.

In April 2007, Australian pop singer Peter Wilson released a song co-written by Frank Farian entitled "Doin' Fine".

Special additions to this release were a Mousse T. remix of Sunny and a brand new song from 2006, featuring Liz Mitchell, entitled A Moment of Love.

In September 2007, Boney M.'s last four original albums, Boonoonoonoos, Ten Thousand Lightyears, Kalimba de Luna - 16 Happy Songs and Eye Dance were reissued on compact disc in Europe and the United States, all including bonus tracks.

In November 2007, a new Christmas compilation was scheduled for release as well as the DVD Fantastic Boney M. – On Stage and on the Road featuring a live performance recorded in Vienna on 1 November 1977 (the DVD cover erroneously states it to be a live show from Hamburg), and a film from the band's 1981 visit to Jamaica (made to promote the Boonoonoonoos album that year).

On 28 June 2007 Boney M. featuring Matthew Felsenfeld and Liz Mitchell performed at the Oktiabrsky concert hall in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The legal rights to the name "Boney M." have been a matter of controversy, and even court cases, between the former members of the band and producer Frank Farian ever since the late 1980s.

In July 2010, Maizie Williams headlined a Boney M. performance at Ramallah's Cultural Palace, in the West Bank, as part of the Palestine International Festival.

In December 2021, Mitchell was one of the contributors to the Channel 5 music show Britain's Biggest 70s Hits alongside other musicians from the era like Dean Friedman and Barry Blue, and radio presenters like David Hamilton.

After remaining at no.‍1 for five weeks, "Rivers of Babylon" began dropping down the chart, at which point the B-side "Brown Girl in the Ring" was given extensive radio airplay, and the single ascended to no.‍2.

Boney M. is the only artist to appear twice in the top 12 best selling singles of all time in the UK, with "Rivers of Babylon" in seventh place and "Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord" at number 11.

Compared to other best-selling artists of the 1970s like ABBA, Donna Summer, and the Bee Gees, the Boney M. discography is quite unusual – while the greater part of the band's back catalogue has been remixed, remade, remodeled and reissued all through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s by producer Frank Farian and record company BMG-Ariola (now Sony Music), most of the original 7" and 12" versions issued on vinyl in the 1970s and early 1980s remained unavailable on CD until 2007, where they were released on various compilations, most notably The Collection (2008), the Ultimate Boney M. series (2008), Let It All Be Music: The Party Album (2009), Hit Story (2010) and Diamonds (2015).

[43] During the 2002 presidential election campaign of South Korea, then-candidate Roh Moo-hyun, who eventually won the presidency at that event, took Bahama Mama to promote his aim of positive political reform.

[45] In the 2008 Kazakh film Tulpan, the tractor driver Boni continually plays a cassette of "Rivers of Babylon", an example of his fascination for all things Western.