Entry · catalog no. 1250
Cha Cha Slide
/ /ˈtʃɑː tʃɑː slaɪd/ /CHAH-chah SLYDE
noun · South Side, Chicago, Illinois · 1990s
✓ Verified
1.
A line dance performed to a recorded set of spoken instructions — slides, stomps, hops, claps, a turn — requiring no partner and no prior lesson.
“The DJ put on the Cha Cha Slide and the grandmothers got up before the kids did.”
2.
The record itself, and by extension the format it launched of instruction-driven party singles.
“Every reception has a Cha Cha Slide moment whether you want one or not.”
Origin & Attribution
Willie Perry Jr., a South Side Chicago DJ who performed as DJ Casper and as Mr. C the Slide Man, built the routine as a favor for his nephew, a fitness trainer at a Bally Total Fitness in Hyde Park, so an aerobics class would have something to follow. In a 2018 interview Perry dated the creation to 1999, though obituaries have given 1996 and 1998; his own account is the best-provenanced. He sold copies himself before any label was involved, WGCI put it on Chicago radio first, and Universal Records came after that, releasing the single in 2000. It is widely mistaken for a generic wedding-DJ novelty of no particular parentage. It has a named author, a named neighborhood, and a documented chain of custody from a Hyde Park gym floor to the Billboard Hot 100.
1999
Perry builds the routine for his nephews aerobics class at a Hyde Park Bally Total Fitness
2000
Released on Universal Records and reaching number eighty-three on the Billboard Hot 100
2023
Willie Perry Jr. dies on 8 August at fifty-eight; national obituaries name him as the author for the first time for many listeners
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Midwest
South Side, Chicago, Illinois · 1990s
Spoken by
Chicago Black social dancers first; now near-universal at American gatherings
$CHACHAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady27 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
88/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1999
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@chitown
Chicago, IL
@detlex
Detroit, MI
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Erica Gunderson, Nearly 20 Years Later, Cha-Cha Slide Still Gets People Moving, WTTW News, Chicago Tonight, 29 May 2018
public television
■
DJ Casper, creator of the iconic and ubiquitous Cha Cha Slide, has died at 58, NPR, 8 August 2023
radio
■
+ Cite a sourceDJ Casper dead: Cha Cha Slide creator was 58, Chicago Sun-Times, 8 August 2023
newspaper
See also