Harare — Chimurenga music guru, Thomas "Mukanya" Mapfumo and his 10-piece band, The Blacks Unlimited, will stage four shows in Australia next week.

The first show is set for the Prince Bandroom in Melbourne on April 17 followed two days later by another at The Gaelic in Sydney.

Mukanya moves to South Australia where he will stage a show at the Gov in Adelaide on April 23 before rounding off the tour with a trip to Western Australia for his final show at the Fly By Nite in Perth on April 25.

The tour is being promoted by Zambezi Promotions, and Mukanya -- who was in the United Kingdom over the Easter holiday -- will be hoping that the promoters have done enough to publicise the shows for the benefit of Zimbabweans dotted around the sprawling Pacific island.

Mukanya is obviously keen to avoid a situation where he might be forced to play before small crowds as happened to sungura giant Alick Macheso in February.

Macheso blamed the poor turnout at some of his shows on the failure by the promoter to reach out to the sizeable Zimbabwean population in Australia.