This dissertation is focused on how a unique group of isiZulu speaking South Africans constructed and reinforced ithemba ('hope'), facing HIV/AIDS stigmatization through verbal art, including narrating, singing, and joking, amidst the structural inequalities residual of apartheid and colonialism as well as the inequities of international AIDS activism. In South Africa in 2008—the time at which the bulk of ethnographic research for this dissertation was conducted—HIV/AIDS remained highly stigmatized while thirty to forty percent of the population was infected with the illness. At that time the South African government had reversed its previous stance of AIDS denialism and was beginning to roll out anti-retroviral medication. The community of focus for the research upon which this dissertation is based is a gospel choir in which all group members, self-identified as Zulu, are living with HIV/AIDS. Formed in the late nineteen nineties, this choir was unique in its vocal international AIDS activism and subsequent access to antiretroviral medication at a time when few were receiving adequate medical care. The choir's success was in part a result of the philanthropy of international donors and a local hospital. I worked with the choir in 2008, participating in and documenting their lives as they struggled to continue their support and activist activities. The dissertation analyzes three types of performance integral to the interactive construction of support and activism (understood within the rubric of ithemba ['hope']) among choir members and by choir members for international audiences. These three types of performance, narrating HIV, singing about HIV, and joking about HIV, are contextualized within a discussion of structural inequality and international activism, the communicative dynamics and cultural context of HIV/AIDS stigmatization, and linguistic practices and health seeking behaviors within multiple traditions of treatment (medical, traditional and faith healing). The dissertation contributes to anthropological theorization of stigma, engaging with stigma theory in a novel way that emphasizes the concurrence of interactive and moral/ethical dynamics of stigma. Here I suggest that one does not overcome stigma but rather faces it, allowing one to live a productive life even in a context of stigmatization. In this convergence of face, interaction and ethics, the dissertation engages new perspectives on intersubjectivity. The dissertation also emphasizes the crucial importance of verbal art for expressing what might otherwise be inexpressible. Furthermore, the analysis of this dissertation contributes to contemporary anthropological work on music by demonstrating how music making is embodied communicative practice. Finally, the dissertation promotes a critical and reflexive awareness of international AIDS activism with the aim of encouraging historically aware, culturally appropriate and effective AIDS activism and support.