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“V-Dub” – “Titanic” – “Mr Bozack” - These were some of the superlatives used to describe the life and influence of popular and well-loved Algoa FM presenter, Viv Bozack.
Around 200 family, friends and colleagues packed the Athenaeum in Port Elizabeth on Sunday to pay tribute to 36-year-old Vuyisa Ngomane, who died in hospital last Wednesday after suffering a haemorragic stroke stroke just days earlier.
The well-love presenter, who touched the lives of many radio listeners in Algoa FM country weekdays between 12pm and 3pm, leaves behind his partners, Wabsy, teenage daughter Khanya and two-year-old son, Sisa.
Viv was rushed to Livingstone Hospital on Sunday October 20 after Wabsy returned from church to find him lying in their Cental flat. He did not recover and died late in the afternoon on Tuesday, October 22.
The news of his passing came as a tremendous shock to family, friends and colleagues.
It was so sudden.
Algoa FM managing director, Dave Tiltmann, said his “presence in our lives was more that you (he) would ever know.”
“We treasured you,” Tiltmann said, adding that Viv “would have wanted us to find new ways to make time more precious.”
Sister, Buli G, also a former presenter on Algoa FM, said “growing up with him was a privilege.” She described how bright and intelligent Viv was, recalling his first leading role in a school play when he had to play a doctor at a tender age.
She told of his love for animals, climbing trees and reading. Later in life, she said, “he encouraged my dream” for music.
Friends who were part of a rap ban named Sixth Man paid tribute to Viv’s legacy as a dedicated and motivated rapper.
Friend and musician Donna Africa paid a musical tribute to him.
Pierre Voges of the Mandela Bay Development Agency said Viv had “an amazing ability to be tolerant ” adding that he was able
to “cross the cultural divide.”
