DJ Casper, best known as Cha Cha Slide’ creator, has passed on.
BBC reports that DJ Casper, best known for creating the hugely successful dance hit “Cha Cha Slide,” has died at 58. Chicago’s ABC first reported the news. DJ Casper’s wife told the channel that he died on Monday after battling cancer for seven years.
DJ Casper was born Willie Perry Jr. and raised in Chicago. According to reports, his hit song “Cha Cha Slide,” originally released under the title “Casper Slide Pt. 1,” was recorded in 1998 for his personal trainer nephew’s aerobics class.
When the song blew up in local fitness clubs, he released a new version in 2000, “Casper Slide Pt. 2,” and it began getting radio play. The song eventually reached No. 1 on the U.K. Singles chart that year after Chicago’s M.O.B Records became involved. It also topped the Dance charts in Scotland and Ireland.
Speaking to ABC7’s Samantha Chatman about his kidney and liver cancer diagnosis in May 2016, he said, “Anybody that’s going through cancer, know that you have cancer and cancer does not have you,” Casper said at the time. “So, keep on doing the ‘Cha Cha Slide.’”
