Keorapetse William Kgositsile, also known as “Bra Willie” was a South African poet and political activist. He is also father to the American Hip-Hop artist Thebe Kgositsile who goes by the name, Earl Sweatshirt.

He published his first poetry anthology, Spirits Unchained in the year 1969 under the United States publisher, Broadside Press.

Spirits Unchained became very popular, winning him the Harlem Cultural Council Poetry Award and the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Award in the US. After the publishing of My Name is Afrika in 1971, Bra. Willie joined the higher ranks becoming one of the leading African poets, both in Africa and internationally.

Amongst many projects pioneered by Keorapetse Kgositsile, he founded The Black Arts Theatre in Harlem, USA. After returning to South Africa from exile, he founded the ANC’s Department of Education, and its Department of Arts and Culture in 1983.

He held the position of “Advisor” to the Minister of Arts and Culture in South Africa. In 1975, Kgositsile took up a teaching position at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Kgositsile was honoured with the South African Poet Laureate Prize in 2006 by the South African Literary Awards.

Kgositsile passed away at the age of 79 on January 3, 2018 after a short illness in Johannesburg, South Africa.