Featuring new recordings by his current band, Joe Geia Band's latest album 'Sing for the Black' is now officially available on all digital platforms.
Originally released in 2025 as a Double-Vinyl Album & CD accompanied by a 20-page booklet with lyrics and the stories behind the songs, these new recordings see fresh instrumentation on Joe Geia's revered tracks like his enduring anthem 'Yil Lull', 'Uncle Willie', '40000 Years', and 'North South East & West' bringing together the soundtrack to his 'From Rations to Wages to Treaty' show, which is currently touring on the 'Sing For The Black' tour.
The Sing for the Black Tour began earlier this year, visiting major capital city and regional venues in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, taking in some of the most meaningful locations connected to Joe's trajectory, including Palm Island, Cherbourg, Hope Vale and Thursday Island.
Celebrating over four decades of songwriting, performance and social activism, this tour visits key places of deep significance to the stories and the personal journey portrayed in Joe's creative catalogue, including Yarrabah, which had profound influence on Joe's formative years and has nestled decades-long friendships and collaborations, and Palm Island, where Joe would have been born if his father had not been a key instigator in the 1957 Palm Island Strike.
Other stops in the tour include Hope Vale, with family and cultural connections through his Gugu Yimithirr mother, part of the Stolen Generations, taken from Cooktown and sent to Palm Island at age 8, and Thursday Island, where the deepest family roots are and which has had a profound influence in Joe's formative years and has nestled decades-long friendships and collaborations.
Melbourne and Castlemaine will reunite Joe with the communities he was actively involved in during his more than 30 years residing and creating in Victoria.
The upcoming tour will serve as an opportunity to meaningfully connect Joe's loyal followers with the new album, introduce his work and legacy to new audiences.
The venue in Canberra is nearby to the Yil Lull Recording Studio, which was named as a tribute to his enduring anthem 'Yil Lull'.
In Sydney, Joe will perform at the Redfern Community Centre, mere steps from the mural he was involved in painting in 1983, which was inspired by and named after his "40,000 years" song, a tribute to Aboriginal people's continuous presence and connection to country.
The 'Sing for the Black' album was produced as part of a PhD that Joe is completing at QUT, researching the human, historical, political and creative dimensions of a 45-year creative career and a personal lived experience inextricably linked to these songs and stories.
'From Rations to Wages to Treaty' tracks the experiences of First Nations people in Australia over three historical eras, sung in chronological order from pre-colonisation up to the present day with the ongoing struggle for Treaty.
"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," said Joe Geia.
"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. 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."
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