Guugu Yimidhirr and Kaurareg music icon, Joe Geia will launch his double vinyl album 'Sing for the Black' with a national tour marking more than four decades of songwriting, performance and activism.

The tour will take Mr Geia and his band to venues across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, including communities connected to his family and music.

Recorded in late 2025, the album brings together songs from 'From Rations to Wages to Treaty', tracing First Nations experiences from before colonisation through to the continuing struggle for Treaty.

The release includes a 20-page booklet with lyrics and the stories behind the songs, with physical copies available through Bandcamp and live shows ahead of a digital release later this year.

Mr Geia has taken those stories to audiences across Australia and overseas throughout his career.

"I have had many highlights and many lows in my four-decades-plus career, touring extensively, nationally and internationally, including Ireland, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, taking with me a message of education and reconciliation through music—the universal language," he said.

"I always found that I was treated much more respectfully outside of Australia.

"To have the opportunity to travel to many parts of the world has certainly expanded my knowledge."

The tour begins at Yarrabah Festival on September 12, followed by the Torres Shire Multicultural Festival on Thursday Island on September 18 and HVASC Cultural Park in Hope Vale on September 20.

A Palm Island performance is scheduled for October 16, before the tour resumes in January 2027.

Yarrabah helped shape Mr Geia's formative years and has been a place of friendships and musical collaborations spanning decades.

Palm Island is where he would have been born had his father not been a key instigator of the 1957 Palm Island Strike.

His connections to Hope Vale come through his Gugu Yimithirr mother, a member of the Stolen Generations who was taken from Cooktown and sent to Palm Island at eight years old.

Thursday Island holds deep family roots and also helped shape his early life.

Mr Geia's reflections on his career remain grounded in the circumstances of his birth.

"I often think, not bad for a Black kid born under the Act in a tin barracks in the middle of a North Queensland cane field," he said.

The 2027 dates begin at Theatre Royal in Castlemaine on January 28 and Darebin Arts Centre in Melbourne on January 29, reconnecting him with communities where he lived and worked for more than 30 years.

The band will perform at the Armitage Centre at Toowoomba's Empire Theatre on February 19 and the Ration Shed Museum in Cherbourg on February 20.

March dates include The Street Theatre in Canberra on March 5, Redfern Community Centre in Sydney on March 6 and DanceNorth in Townsville on March 13.

The Redfern show will take place near the mural Mr Geia helped paint in 1983, inspired by his song '40,000 years', a tribute to Aboriginal people's continuing presence and connection to Country.

'Sing for the Black' was produced as part of a PhD Mr Geia is completing at Queensland University of Technology, examining his 45-year career and the lived experiences behind his songs.

'From Rations to Wages to Treaty' presents those stories across three historical eras, with songs performed in chronological order.

Mr Geia came to prominence recording and touring with No Fixed Address, before building a catalogue including 'Yil Lull' and 'Uncle Willie'.

His career has included supporting Ray Charles and BB King, and performing for and welcoming Nelson Mandela to Melbourne in 1990.

Written in 1974 and first released in 1988, 'Yil Lull' celebrates the Aboriginal flag and encourages resistance, resilience and unity.

Its title means "we sing" in Gugu Yalanji, and the song remains part of the repertoire of schools, choirs and bands in Australia and overseas.

ANU's First Nations recording studio was named after the song when it opened in 2021, providing opportunities for emerging and established First Nations artists to write, workshop and record music.

Tickets for ticketed 'Sing for the Black' tour performances go on sale on October 7, with the double vinyl album available through Bandcamp and at live shows.