The weekend has arrived and we know you’re watching the clock as much as any Chicago Bears fan, waiting for the showdown with the Rams on Sunday. Social media was a great distraction for the anxious energy, with many fans posting videos and reels synced to the song “Percolator.”
It’s the earworm that will get you out of a deep slumber. And out of your seat at the United Center, celebrating Benny the Bull’s court feats. What time is it? It’s time for the Percolator.
The quintessential house classic track and corresponding eponymous dance are making the rounds, with the franchise posting a clip after the Green Bay Packers’ defeat, with fans, young and old, dancing to the beat. So we felt now was a perfect time to look into what makes the tune reminiscent of an old-fashioned coffee pot that pops instead of gurgles, a perfect anthem for the team in this moment.
It’s so Chicago, it hurts. But hurts so good. And regardless if you do the South Side version of the dance or the West Side version (look it up), one can’t not move to it.
The work is that of Curtis Jones, also known as Cajmere and Green Velvet, a former chemical engineering student who, according to former Tribune rock critic Greg Kot, helped put “Chicago back on the international dance scene in the ’90s.”
The track, released in 1992 on Cajmere’s label, Cajual, is considered a house music classic. Fans and DJs attest that the track was integral for house when released — as it was a time hip-hop was emerging.
“House music probably would have died, if it weren’t for the kids who came along in the ‘90s who kept house music going — the second wave … this subculture looking for the party seven days a week, looking for house music, specifically,” said DJ Lady D, aka Darlene Jackson, executive director and CEO of the social justice arts organization Collaboraction. “Hip-hop brought its own culture. It was really hard to mingle the two audiences, because you got peace-loving people of all walks of life, and then you got people who are posturing this sort of image of what it means to be hip-hop.”
April Welch, a “house head” (or house music enthusiast) and founder of Immortal U, recalled the power of the music when she was in college. One can hear the smile and awe in her voice as she recollects Illinois Institute of Technology parties that she would attend coming home from Boston University — large events that she said brought all cultures together with its driving rhythm, tribal beats. On college campuses, house music was a release aided by future engineers who revamped how sound happened in a space-using equipment and systems in different ways.
Barry Robinson used to DJ on Chicago campuses back in the day, and he said when “Percolator” first dropped at IIT, people lost their minds. “The dance floor would just rock,” he said. “And the thing about Chicago, Chicago people like to dance. They’re serious about their dance.”
“Back then, the way people danced was different,” she said. “We showed up in gym shoes, ready to sweat everything out. We came for an athletic workout. Those years were sort of the last years where the dance floor was freedom and a safe space for madness.”
Freedom, sweating it out, people coming together — is it any wonder that “Percolator” is playing on repeat with fans wearing their gear and showing off their moves? One of the names out there is Sam Sanchez, a 26-year-old software engineer from South Chicago, who has earned the name “Percolator Guy.” He learned the dance in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2024, when he was dancing the South Side version, celebrating his nuptials at Navy Pier, that he went viral. He’s been running with the name ever since.
“The song embodies home to me,” Sanchez said. “Whenever it comes on, I’m reminded of events it was played at when I was younger, line dances that people were doing at birthday parties and celebrations throughout my childhood. Every time I hear the ‘Percolator,’ I think about all of the great things that the culture of Chicago has done for my life.”
In dance tutorials on YouTube, Sanchez can be seen getting into the groove in locations around Chicagoland, with and without his Bears gear on.
He learned the dance during a church performance and has since produced too many Percolating videos to count; the videos accruing over 500 million views across platforms last year. His passion for dancing to “Percolator” has taken him to places he never thought he’d go — from collaborations with the Chicago Bulls to dancing at the Arc Music Festival with Cajmere.
“What I love about the dance is the energy that you put behind it,” Sanchez said. “It’s something that allows people to be themselves and do something with passion without a care in the world about what others think. I love that the Bears are playing the song leading up to the game.
“Having a team represent your home city in a way that shows that they are connected to the culture is very inspiring and I hope they continue to stay connected to the city and its history. I will be a Bears fan no matter where they go. If they decide to move to northwest Indiana, I will be there Percolating as always.”
“We already had ‘The Super Bowl Shuffle.’ We need to do the Bears ‘Percolator,’” said Thomas Kendricks, known as DJ Slugo. “It’s one of those records that’s going to always get the reaction from the crowd. I’ve been in different countries and when that record comes on, everybody looks like they’re from Chicago,” he said.
“It has a glow. … It’s one of the biggest records out of Chicago with a global effect.”
