DJ Casper, the Chicago native who created the iconic “Cha Cha Slide,” died Monday. He was 58.

Casper, whose real name is Willie Perry Jr., was known to music and dance fans around the globe for the hugely popular line dance/song, lost his long battle with cancer, according to reports Tuesday.

In an interview with the Sun-Times in 2019, Mr. Perry talked about remaining positive despite being diagnosed with both liver and kidney cancer in 2016. The illness, he said at the time, had gone into remission in 2018, and Casper would visit hospitals to chat with other cancer patients and spread positivity and encouragement.

For the 20th anniversary of the dance in 2021, he planned the global fundraising “Dime Drive,” wherein fans would perform the familiar slide left/slide right/criss-cross dance he invented and donate a dime to cancer research.

Mr. Perry said he credited God with giving him the strength to persevere through all the hardship he faced.

“I’m here. If God says he got something else for me to do, he’s going to let me continue to see what I’m doing,” Mr. Perry said in the 2019 interview.

In an interview in May with ABC-7 Chicago, Mr. Perry explained the impact of the “Cha Cha Slide”:

“I have one of the biggest songs that played at all stadiums: hockey, basketball, football, baseball; they played it at the Olympics. It was something that everybody could do.”

More to come...