Music always held challenges for Albert Mazibuko and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

In the early days of the group’s existence, South African apartheid policies restricted where it could perform – forcing the singers to scramble to avoid officials in some performances.

Now the singers are dealing with the task of giving Western classical music an accent from the South African townships.

“From the beginning, we were trying to help people become aware of their culture,” singer Mazibuko says. “This is a beautiful culture, and we wanted people to be more aware of it.”

The 10 singers will show off their look at the music of their Zulu roots tonight in a show that will mix their earlier sounds with the Western blend of the current album, “No Boundaries.”

“The title says it all,” Mazibuko says. “There are no boundaries in the music.”

The group has been displaying that by steadily taking its sound to widespread audiences since its first album in 1970. It captured many listeners on Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album in 1986. It won a Grammy in 1987 and again this year for the album “Raise Your Spirits Higher.”

It has performed at Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies, for ht elate Pope John Paul II and at the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Members of the group saw another way to draw listeners and illustrate the universal blend in music by adding Western classical music to its sound.

That led to “No Boundaries,” which includes the group’s versions of “Amazing Grace” and J.S. Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” along with works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert.

It also has the group working with the English Chamber Orchestra, creating a sound that is different from its usual one. Mazibuko says the group doesn’t need the orchestra to perform the classical tunes from this album, and the tour features group members in their traditional a capella setting. But he says he an his colleagues are considering work with an orchestra in their next recording.

But first, the group has to finish its 60-appearance, three-month tour in the United States.

“It’s a blessing,” Mazibuko says about the success, recalling the tougher times the band has sidestepped to reach the success of the present.

In the early ‘70s, for instance, he says performances in South Africa were restricted, and when Ladysmith Black Mambazo took its music on the road, it had done so without fanfare.

One time, group members were stopped, detained and questioned for four hours before they were released because they were “only singers,” he says. Mazibuko claims they were the first to get permission to travel without restriction in 1974, a freedom that helped them spread their message.

That message now reaches people far beyond South Africa.

“When we talk to people, they tell us the music has done something to reach their spirits,” he says.

-Bob Karlovits