DJ Casper

DJ Casper, born Willie Perry Jr. (1965–2023), was a Chicago-based DJ, rapper and producer best known worldwide for «Cha Cha Slide», a call-and-response line-dance track originally created as a personal workout mix for a friend's gym before it took on a life of its own. The song's step-by-step spoken instructions — «slide to the left», «criss cross», «cha cha now, y'all» — turned it into a fixture at weddings, sporting events, school gyms and parties across the English-speaking world.

«Cha Cha Slide» became a genuine crossover hit, charting internationally and spawning multiple versions and remixes, including the «Cha Cha Slide (Part 2)» and «Cha Cha Slide (Radio Edit)» that circulated on radio and in clubs alongside the original «Original Live Platinum Band Mix». Its blend of funk-inflected production and plainspoken dance-instruction rap made it one of the most recognizable novelty-dance records of the 2000s, closer in spirit to earlier line-dance anthems than to mainstream hip-hop of its era.

Perry worked as a DJ and producer in Chicago outside of his signature hit, but «Cha Cha Slide» remains his defining legacy, a rare example of a single dance-instruction record achieving lasting, near-universal cultural penetration. He died in 2023 in Hazel Crest, Illinois, at age 58.