Cha Cha Slide

DJ Casper (real name Willie Perry Jr., also billed as Mr. C The Slide Man) created the Cha Cha Slide around 1998 as an aerobics exercise for his nephew David Wilson, a fitness trainer at a Bally Total Fitness in Chicago's Hyde Park. The version that became famous — "Casper Slide Part 2," with an original instrumental — was released on August 2, 2000, and picked up by Universal Records. Chicago's WGCI-FM was the first station to play it, and through 2001 it spread via urban radio and mobile DJs.

Despite reaching only #83 on the Billboard Hot 100, the Cha Cha Slide became a permanent fixture at school dances, weddings, and skating rinks. The song didn't need massive radio play because it was its own dance. "Slide to the left," it commanded — two hops, cha cha real smooth. In March 2004 it climbed all the way to #1 on the UK Singles Chart. Casper, performing in his trademark all-white outfits, spent the rest of his life leading the slide he invented; he died in August 2023, at 58.

The song's genius is that it requires no choreography class. Everyone in the room — from kids to grandparents — can do the steps correctly the first time, because the song tells them exactly what to move. That's why it never left the rotation, and why it still opens dance floors decades later.