Corporate and festival live band
Corporate events, festivals, international showcases, cultural celebrations, and audiences seeking vibrant, authentic South African live music.
Hot Water is one of South Africa’s most original and exhilarating live bands, driven by the boundless energy and creative force of Donovan Copley. Formed in Cape Town in 2006, the band has carved out a genre-bending sound that fuses kwasa-kwasa, sakkie-sakkie, folk, blues, maskandi, and township rhythms into a musical expression that feels both wildly inventive and deeply familiar.
At its core, Hot Water is an exploration of what it means to be South African. Their music has grown organically through experimentation, storytelling, and an unfiltered celebration of cultural roots. This authenticity has earned them critical acclaim, three studio albums, and a devoted following at home and abroad.
The band has performed at every major South African music festival, including Kirstenbosch Summer Concerts, Rocking the Daisies, and Oppikoppi, and has shared stages with iconic artists such as Hugh Masekela, Johnny Clegg, Mango Groove, and Freshlyground. Known for spontaneous collaborations, Hot Water has also appeared alongside Karen Zoid, David Kramer, and Dizu Plaatjies.
Hot Water and Donovan Copley is the madman of the South African music scene for sure! His genre-bending creation, Hot Water, is a fusion of everything we love and know about being South African.
From ‘kwasa-kwasa’ to ‘sakkie-sakkie’, from folk and blues to maskanda, you know you are in the presence of the crazy and the profound – it has grown and organically evolved through a musical exploration of what it truly means to be home.
Cape Town’s Hot Water launched onto the scene in 2006, and they have since cut three critically acclaimed studio albums and played at every major music festival in the country, including Kirstenbosch Gardens Summer Concerts, Rocking the Daisies and Oppikoppi (to name a few!)
They have also performed with musical legends such as Hugh Masekela, Johnny Clegg, Mango Groove and FreshlyGround, as well as spontaneously hitting the stage with artists including Karen Zoid, David Kramer and Dizu Plaatjies.
Widely featured in many local and international commercials and shows, and the only band to have performed on top of Table Mountain, Hot Water is unstoppable.
From very early on, Hot Water garnered attention from across the globe.
They have performed in over ten different countries; from the twelve thousand-strong crowd at WOMAD Caceres, Spain to the Royal Carre Theatre in the Netherlands, Hot Water has taken its distinctive South African sound across the globe – and the world can’t get enough.
On stage, Donovan is a master of the unexpected. Whether he’s hanging from the scaffolding or breaking out into a toyi-toyi, there’s no doubt that you’re in for some unforgettable fun!
Locally rooted, while at the same time internationally successful, Donovan Copley’s Hot Water is an irrepressible wellspring of joy, an honesty, found deep in the roots of what makes us human, Finally, it has arrived – a musical statement of happiness and one hell of a jam!
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