Liz McGregor does not tiptoe around the nature and consequences of HIV/Aids. On a quest for truth, her writing is precise and direct with the use of controlled, accurate and effective language. There is nothing dignified about the physical symptoms of full-blown Aids.

When popular Yfm DJ Khabzela died in January 2004, the HI virus had ravaged his brain, leaving him hallucinatory and delusional. He could not move his arms or legs; bedsores festered on his buttocks, back, hips, ankles and elbows. The colostomy bag attached to his bowel was leaking blood and pus seeped from the wound left by an operation to remove his intestines. McGregor jolts the reader out of denial and apathy.

Khabzela’s premature death at the age of 35 could have been prevented.

He was a modern, urban, cosmopolitan man, yet despite offers of and access to anti-retroviral drugs - which may have given him another ten to twenty years of relatively healthy life - he refused them.

McGregor traces a deeply personal journey, exploring the choices and circumstances behind Khabzela's decision not to take ARVs and his desperate search for alternative remedies to save his life. She charts the tension in a man torn between conflicting Christian and traditional African beliefs.

The biography has been conscientiously researched, given the sensitive subject matter and the difficult logistics involved in meeting with many of the icon’s family, friends and colleagues. McGregor engages with the country's history on a journey with Khabzela through taxi wars, the birth of kwaito and the pursuit of sexual conquests in a world where sex can mean death.

One of seven children, brought up by a deeply religious single mother, Khabzela, born Fana Khaba, grew up in the poverty and hardship of Soweto. He left school without a matric and became a taxi driver, but took only five years to realise his dream of becoming a radio DJ.

The energetic and vibrant young man received a break on Soweto Community Radio and started building up a following before he moved to Yfm. The most popular DJ on Gauteng's favourite youth radio station, Khabzela stayed loyal to his humble origins and championed the emergence of kwaito as the beat to which post-apartheid black youth danced.

McGregor writes: "It is safe to say that Fana Khaba was fantastically promiscuous. Fana himself was entirely open, not to say boastful, about his exuberant sex life." He lived with his fiancee, but "had a lot of girls everywhere" and at least five children by five different women.

In April 2003, the inspirational role model announced on air that he was HIV positive. There was an instant and overwhelming response of love and support from his listeners. Described as cheeky, explosive and direct, Khabzela was firmly entrenched in the hearts of his fans, many of whom would attend his funeral at Soweto's Orlando Stadium less than a year later.

McGregor's book is an eye-opener, revealing that there is much needing to be done in terms of educating people about HIV: "A man told me that Aids was manufactured by a man named Apollo," said Satch, the Yfm driver who drove McGregor to various interview destinations. "He injected it into black people or into things they eat, like oranges. They wanted to kill black people."

The month before he died, Khabzela was given the Nation Builder's Award in recognition of his contribution to the fight against HIV/Aids. The award was instigated and sponsored by a funeral service and the prize was a free funeral. "HIV/Aids had turned funerals into big business," writes McGregor. Khabzela was too weak to hold the ostentatious, gilt-framed certificate presented to him. The vultures were circling, feeding off his celebrity status.

Equally disturbing, is the business card belonging to a "natural health consultant" McGregor interviewed, which reads: "People are not dying from HIV; HIV is not the cause of Aids; Aids can be reversed 100%; ARVs are the cause of Aids death." Khabzela's treatment at the hand of a new industry of miracle-peddlers exploiting the Aids epidemic is cause for great concern.

South Africans' responses to HIV/Aids may be complex, but this book makes one thing clear. It is going to take more than quacks and miracle potions, African potato, lemon, olive oil and garlic to control the scourge decimating Africa.

Michelle McGrane is a freelance writer, reviewer and poet. She lives in South Africa.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.