Lindelani Mkhize has broken his silence amid a bitter and very public legal battle with his Joyous Celebration co-founders, offering a heartfelt apology to South Africans and fans of the beloved gospel group. The Joyous Celebration legal dispute has rattled one of the country’s most iconic music brands, and Mkhize is clearly feeling the weight of it — not just personally, but on behalf of an institution that has meant so much to millions of South Africans for three decades.
Speaking in a tone that was equal parts remorseful and resolute, Mkhize acknowledged that airing the group’s internal grievances through the media and the courts was never the right way to handle things. “We shouldn’t be dealing with our issues in the media. It’s not how we should be dealing with issues,” he said. It’s a sentiment many fans would strongly agree with, given just how much the brand has represented faith, unity, and excellence in South African gospel music.
The fallout at the heart of this saga involves serious financial misconduct allegations traded between Mkhize and his long-time co-founders Jabu Hlongwane and Mthunzi Namba. Hlongwane and Namba formally accused Mkhize of financial mismanagement, including a failure to account for company funds — a situation that allegedly triggered a R1 million tax demand from the South African Revenue Service in 2024. They further alleged that Mkhize spent over R1 million on personal travel, claims he has flatly denied.
Mkhize, in turn, fired back at Hlongwane, accusing him of blocking access to financial records and managing the group’s finances unilaterally. The matter has since escalated to the courts, where it now sits, unresolved and uncomfortably visible to the public. This is not the image any of the founding trio would have wanted attached to a brand built on gospel integrity and communal upliftment.
Joyous Celebration Legal Dispute Won’t Stop 30th Anniversary Tour, Says Mkhize
Despite everything swirling around the group off-stage, Mkhize was firm on one thing — the show goes on. The much-anticipated 30/30 anniversary tour is set to kick off in Johannesburg from 30 April to 3 May at the Johannesburg Theatre, before taking the production on a nationwide run across all nine provinces. Tickets for the Johannesburg leg are already available, with further provincial dates still to be confirmed.
Mkhize confirmed that rehearsals have been well underway for the past two months, with the current cast joined by alumni and friends of Joyous Celebration for what is shaping up to be a milestone celebration. It’s a significant moment — 30 years in, and still filling theatres. That kind of staying power doesn’t happen by accident, and Mkhize seems acutely aware of the responsibility that comes with it.
“We have to be strong. We have to deal with what we have to deal with. But whatever is happening is not bigger than the brand. The brand is bigger than all of us,” he said. Those words carry a particular weight coming from one of the three men who built the brand from the ground up.
Mkhize was also candid about the reality of long-term partnerships eventually reaching a breaking point. He framed the dispute not as a catastrophe, but as something that happens when people who’ve worked closely together for years begin to see things differently. His view is that maturity — and the willingness to find workable solutions — is what separates a temporary falling out from permanent damage. “We are not the first ones to have a dispute. We will deal with that and move on,” he said plainly.
What stands out most in Mkhize’s remarks is where he places the true ownership of Joyous Celebration. “This is no longer for us. It might have been started by us, but it no longer belongs to us. It belonged to the country. It belonged to the fans.” That framing — that the brand has outgrown its founders — is both generous and grounding, and it may well be the clearest signal yet that Mkhize is trying to draw a line under the chaos before it causes irreparable harm.
Whether the courts, the co-founders, and the fans all arrive at the same resolution remains to be seen, but one thing is certain — Joyous Celebration has survived 30 years of South African history, and if Mkhize’s determination is anything to go by, it intends to survive this too.