The hand claps sound upbeat, the grooves slightly funky and the moves smooth. Importantly, the instructions are so basic anyone between the ages of 3 and 93 can follow them. “Cha Cha Slide” has been played everywhere from dance clubs, country clubs, school auditoriums and weddings to football stadiums and Olympics facilities. Chicago music artist Willie Perry Jr., better known as DJ Casper, recorded the song in 1998.
Perry died Monday of cancer at age 58. His death was confirmed by his wife, Kim Bradshaw.
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The “Cha Cha Slide” continues to be a near-ubiquitous song, and has prompted millions to join in a dance rooted in the city’s stepping and Black line-dance traditions. Perry originally created it — a track officially titled “Casper Slide Part 1″ — for his nephew, then a personal trainer at a Bally Total Fitness club in Hyde Park, to use as for aerobic exercise; the tune incorporates Dutch house music DJ-producer Jaydee’s 1992 track “Plastic Dreams” and spoken workout commands. With Perry selling copies out of his car’s trunk, it became popular, leading him to create a follow-up in 2000 called “Casper Slide Part 2″ — now heard as the definitive rendition of the “Cha Cha Slide.”
Born in 1965, Perry was raised in the Englewood neighborhood. He earned his DJ Casper nickname for his propensity for wearing all-white apparel during performances, a reference to the cartoon ghost. He was also known as an on-air personality at iHeartRadio station WVAZ 103 Chicago.
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Locally, programmer Elroy Smith of hip hop radio station WGCI-FM embraced “Casper Slide Part 2″ and the song took off. Chicago record label M.O.B. Records released a compilation album that expanded the song’s reach. After Universal Records picked up distribution, it became a global sensation.
In a 2018 interview with WTTW-TV, Perry expressed disbelief at the success of a song now aired everywhere from graduation parties to bar mitzvahs. “Cha Cha Slide” topped the charts in Britain and reached the Top 100 in the United States in 2004. Yet the song’s omnipresence at social functions and celebratory occasions — and its familiar commands like “slide to the left” and “reverse” — is beyond the measure of any chart.
Willie Perry Jr., better known as DJ Casper, introduces students to his new dance, “Monsters of the Midway Slide,” at Woodland West Elementary School in Gages Lake on Jan. 22, 2007. (David Trotman-Wilkins/Chicago Tribune)
In 2018, it made a prominent appearance in the opening episode of Season 6 of the hit Netflix drama “Orange Is the New Black,” which also features Perry in a cameo role, playing himself. In the scene, inmate Suzanne Warren escapes her surroundings by imagining DJ Casper performing nearby and nearly everyone around her dancing to the song. In 2019, the song was the subject of a skit on “Saturday Night Live.”
Perry end up touring with James Brown at the height of his fame and occasionally went by another nickname, “Mr. C the Slide Man.”
Throughout his life, Perry was no stranger to health issues. At age 2, he was a victim of lead poisoning, and at 22, he suffered a brain aneurysm. He endured eye surgeries for detached retinas, all scares that prepared him for the challenges that came in 2016 when doctors diagnosed him with renal and neuroendocrine cancer. By the end of 2019, he declared the illness in remission. Noting on his website (casperclassicradio.org) that the experience “was God’s way of just slowing me down just a little bit,” Perry spent time visiting cancer patients at Cook County Hospital and appearing at local charity concerts.
Such positivity seemingly captured the essence of an artist whose optimism and love for people remained trademarks. In the last television interview he granted to ABC7-TV this past May, Perry said, “I’m going to continue to go until I can’t go.”
Perry is survived by his wife, Bradshaw.