By: Jason Shen

DJ Casper, or Willie Perry Jr, born on May 31, 1965, was pronounced dead by his wife on August 7, 2023 after a long battle with cancer. Casper created the song in the late 1990s as an aerobic exercise video for his nephew, who was working as a personal trainer for Bally Total Fitness.

DJ Casper said that the song quickly exploded, and he got requests from many different companies. The WGCI-FM radio station of Chicago aired the song in the year 2000 before it was eventually picked up by Universal Records. Casper says he didn’t really expect Cha Cha Slide to do what it did, and that everything just hit so fast after Universal Records contacted him wanting him to go on a tour. After he found out he had cancer, he still said, “keep on doing the Cha Cha Slide.”