Willie Perry Jr. (born May 31, 1971), best known as DJ Casper, is an American DJ and

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

. Perry Jr. was raised in

Englewood, Chicago Englewood is a neighborhood and community area located on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is also the 68th of the 77 community areas in the city. At its peak population in 1960, over 97,000 people lived in its approxima ...

, and is known as Casper because he almost always wears white clothing on stage. He is also known as Mr. C The Slide Man. Perry's first

hit record A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single or simply a hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although ''hit song'' means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term ''hit record' ...

, "Casper Slide Pt. 1" – also known as "

Cha Cha Slide "Cha Cha Slide" is a song by American artist DJ Casper. The song was released as a single in August 2000, and spent five weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart, peaking at the position of number 83. It continued to be a chart ...

" – was created by Perry for his nephew, who worked as a

personal trainer A personal trainer is an individual who creates and delivers safe and effective exercise programs for apparently healthy individuals and groups, or those with medical clearance to exercise. They motivate clients by collaborating to set goals, p ...

at a

Bally Total Fitness Bally Total Fitness Holding Corporation was an American fitness club chain. At its 2007 peak, prior to the filing of the first of two Chapter 11 bankruptcies, Bally operated nearly 440 facilities located in 29 U.S. states, Mexico, Canada, South K ...

in 1998. After the song grew in popularity as an

aerobic exercise Aerobic exercise (also known as endurance activities, cardio or cardio-respiratory exercise) is physical exercise of low to high intensity that depends primarily on the aerobic energy-generating process. "Aerobic" is defined as "relating to, inv ...

fitness club A health club (also known as a fitness club, fitness center, health spa, and commonly referred to as a gym) is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise. In recent years, the number of fitness and health ser ...

s and PE in schools, Casper created a second song in 2000, titled "Casper Slide Pt. 2", which was picked up by Elroy Smith at Chicago's radio station,

WGCI-FM WGCI-FM (107.5 MHz) is an urban contemporary radio station that is licensed to Chicago, Illinois, serving the Chicago metropolitan area and Northwest Indiana. It is owned and operated by iHeartMedia (formerly known as Clear Channel Communicat ...

. The song became a hit in Chicago in 2004, when the city's M.O.B. Records

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

became involved as well, helping Perry create a whole compilation album with other Chicago-based artists to promote the dance. "Cha Cha Slide" was later picked up by

Universal Records Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch–American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

. In January 2016, Perry Jr. was diagnosed with

kidney cancer Kidney cancer, also known as renal cancer, is a group of cancers that starts in the kidney. Symptoms may include blood in the urine, lump in the abdomen, or back pain. Fever, weight loss, and tiredness may also occur. Complications can include sp ...

and neuroendocrine cancer. After unsuccessful surgery the same month, he began

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothe ...

. In an interview in July 2018, he stated he was in remission. In 2019, Perry stated that he beat his liver and kidney cancers and said he is a changed man, stating "that was God's way of just slowing me down just a little bit." Perry makes an appearance as a DJ in a season 6 episode of '' Orange Is the New Black'', in Crazy Eyes' hallucination of the prisoners and guards line dancing to the Cha Cha Slide.

Discography

Albums

* ''Out Champ'' (1999) * ''Casper'' (2001) * ''I Love You'' (2022)https://www.deezer.com/us/album/297154252

Singles

References

African-American songwriters African-American DJs Living people 1971 births Musicians from Chicago Songwriters from Illinois 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people {{US-DJ-stub