Simon Seekoei

Simon Seekoei died on Monday 26 October 2026 at Eerste River Hospital in Cape Town, aged 70, after an aggressive battle with stage 4 prostate cancer. He had celebrated his 70th birthday in hospital on 20 October.

His son Marco September announced his death, writing that his father "served the Lord faithfully, and through his music and ministry, he touched many lives." His son Connie Seekoei described him as a great tree under whose shade many had sat and grown. His wife, Praylene Lee-Seekoei, wrote that the father of Pentecostal music had exchanged his cross for the crown. Tributes came from the gospel artist Dumisani, who called him a living library of music, ministry and life experience, from the broadcaster and musician Jonathan Rubain and from the group Lekker Crew. A funeral was expected to take place the following week.

Simon Seekoei was born on 20 October 1956 in Porter Street, Worcester, in the Western Cape. His father, Johannes Seekoei, was a Griqua Pentecostal preacher from Petrusville in the Northern Cape who worked for the railways all his life; his mother, Mariana, came from the Robertson district. Family tradition held that his father prayed over the unborn child that he would have the gift of music, and greeted his birth by telling fellow pastors that a prophet had come.

When he was four the family moved to Tiervlei, now Ravensmead, in Cape Town's northern suburbs. By the age of four he was already playing several instruments and singing and preaching in the streets of Tiervlei with his parents. He never had formal music training and later described himself as able to pick up almost any instrument except the drums.

He went to Florida Primary and Webner Primary in Ravensmead, John Ramsey Secondary and Florida Secondary School. Strongly aware of his Khoisan heritage from childhood, he resisted the history taught under apartheid and was once suspended from school for opposing it. He left Athlone Technical College, and later Bible college, because he refused to be taught by an apartheid system, and instead studied theology by distance learning under a Welsh mentor. He sang in his church choir and was a youth leader in his Ravensmead congregation at 19.

Seekoei went into music full time at about 21. With the gospel group Jesus Company, which he founded, he rearranged traditional hymns in a contemporary style and wrote songs such as "The Devil Has a Fine Cheek" and "We Don't Need to Compromise"; it was among the first gospel groups from its community to appear on national television.

In 1982 he began a solo career and formed Simon and the Community Singers. His 1988 song "We See a New South Africa", along with "Cry Freedom", became an anthem of hope against apartheid and was played on the television programme Gospel Gold. In 1988 he also wrote to President P.W. Botha about the denial of voting rights and the marginalisation of people of colour, and he said he was followed and harassed by the security police. The group performed at rallies and clubs and made a six-week tour of the United Kingdom.

A meeting with the American gospel singer Andrae Crouch in Cape Town encouraged him to concentrate on a local sound, and from the 1990s he turned to Afrikaans gospel. Through his label Shekinah Records he discovered Bella Springbok, later Bella Adonis, and wrote and produced eight albums for her, including "Here lei my", "Elke dag met Jesus" and "Dis net die liefde"; "Here lei my" and "Dis net die liefde" went gold in 2006 and 2007. He recorded much of this music with his own children, and later ran Homeza Records, whose first release was by his daughter Mariana.

His own albums included "Ja, Daar Wil Ek Gaan", "My Gees, My Siel, My Liggaam", "Ek Skaam My Nie" (2008), "Met My Hart En My Siel" (2010), "Dankbaar" and the Fellowship Songs collections of church choruses. His best known songs include "Ek Skaam My Nie", "Ek Skuil Net by U", "Ek en My Huis", "Mamma Wat 'n Dierbare Mens" and "Geseënd". He said he had produced more than 50 albums and written more than 500 songs in Afrikaans and English, and his songs were also sung in Zulu and Tswana. In November 2021 he appeared on the kykNET gospel programme Koortjies. He also wrote books, among them "Grace Beyond Divorce" and "Coloured... To Be or Not to Be", and was working on "The Miseducation of Christianity".

Seekoei was twice divorced before he met Praylene Lee, whom he married in the late 1990s; he credited her with standing by him through years when his record labels made little money. He was the father of several children, including his son Connie (also spelt Conney), his daughter Mariana, a singer, and his son Marco September, and he spoke often of his grandchildren. He was proud of his Khoisan roots, refused to be described as coloured, and once declined an honorary doctorate offered in recognition of his contribution to Afrikaans gospel music.

Seekoei is remembered as a pioneer who brought the rhythms of the Karoo and the harmonies of the Cape into Afrikaans gospel music, at a time when few believed there was an audience for it. Songs he wrote, from "We See a New South Africa" to "Here lei my", are still sung in churches across South Africa, and the artists he discovered and mentored, Bella Adonis above all, carried his sound to a national audience.