We Ask Baha Men’s Isaiah Taylor and Songwriter Anslem Douglas
December 2012 by Frank Mastropolo
By 2000, Baha Men were already stars in their native Bahamas, their exuberant “Junkanoo” style inspired by the music of the Islands’ street parades. The band formed in 1980 as High Voltage but success in the U.S. remained elusive.
That would change when producer Steve Greenberg brought the band a tune written by soca singer Anslem Douglas. Soca, or the soul of calypso, originated in Douglas’ native Trinidad. The song, Doggie, was written and recorded by Douglas in Toronto, Canada — a thousand miles north of the Caribbean — where its popularity made Baha Men founder Isaiah Taylor refuse to cover it.
But Greenberg prevailed and the song, retitled Who Let the Dogs Out, became an international sensation, winning a Grammy in 2001.
After 20 years of performing, Baha Men were an overnight success.
Rock Cellar Magazine spoke with Isaiah Taylor and Anslem Douglas about the phenomenon that’s still heard in sports stadiums and movies like Men In Black II and The Hangover.
Rock Cellar Magazine: How can you write soca music when you’re buried in ten feet of snow in Toronto?
Anslem Douglas: (Laughs) That’s just a myth, there’s no ten feet of snow! I’m an island boy. I was born and bred in Trinidad, it’s the music I grew up on. So regardless of where you go, it stays with you. I dabble in different types of music, but calypso/soca is my true, true genre.
RCM: How did you come to write Doggie?
AD: My ex-brother-in-law at the time would always come to the house and he would say that phrase. He has a very big voice and he’d say, “Who let the dogs out!” He said, “Why don’t you write a song with that?” I said, “That phrase sounds so American, it doesn’t sound Caribbean at all.”
It’s just a street cry, like someone would say, “Yo, what’s up dog!” I wrote three versions of the song. The first version, I decided, this is the one. I hit the nail on the head.
RCM: What do the lyrics mean?
AD: It’s a man-bashing song. I’ll tell you why. The lyric of the song says, “The party was nice, the party was pumpin.’” When I said the word “party” I was being metaphorical. It really means things were going great.
The “Yippie-Yi-Yo,” that’s everybody’s happy, right? “And everybody was having a ball.” Life was going great.
“Until the men start the name-callin’ / And then the girls respond to the call.” So the men started calling the women “skank” and “skettel,” every dirty word you can think of. The men started the name-calling and then the girls respond to the call. And then a woman shouts out, “Who let the dogs out?” And we start calling men dogs. It was really a man-bashing song.
RCM: Do people know what those lyrics mean?
AD: (Laughs) I don’t think people even give a shit what they mean. They just want to get to the point where they can bark. They really don’t care.
When you have such a powerful hook or a powerful chorus line, where people sing along to it, the first time you hear the song, you listen: “Ooh, this is good.” But when you get to the chorus and you can sing along with it, the hell with the rest: “I don’t want to hear that anymore, I just want to get to the chorus!”
RCM: Isaiah – how did Steve Greenberg come to you with Who Let the Dogs Out?
Isaiah Taylor: We were in my house in the Bahamas rehearsing one day. And my phone rang. Steve was on the other line and he was talking about this song he heard in Europe. And he said, “Man I would like for you all to do this song.” And I asked him, “What is the name of the song?” And when he said it, I said, “Man, you got to be crazy.”
RCM: Why did you think it was crazy?
IT: I knew the Anslem Douglas version, I used to play it in the nightclubs. That’s why I didn’t want to do the song. At that time, I didn’t think that the song would have even worked, but Steve was very strong on it and I’m glad he was because it definitely worked. Believe me, I will keep my mouth shut from now on.
RCM: Tell me about recording Who Let the Dogs Out.
IT: We had to try and get the best voice to fit the song. I was ever-expanding the group so I ran an audition in Nassau just for singers. We ran an audition on Saturday and on Monday the singer was in Miami doing the recording. We had a couple of different voices but Rick Carey is the one really singing the lead.
Baha Men; Isaiah Taylor 3rd from left
RCM: Were you surprised that Who Let the Dogs Out was such a monster hit?
AD: Yes I was, because when I heard the Baha Men version, I thought it was kind of thin, thinner than what I was doing. I was doing hard core soca. You could hear the Caribbean flavor but it became very poppy. For lack of a better term, it’s kind of watered down. When people ask me what I think, I say, “Oh, it’s great!” but I’m lying. I think it’s good (laughs). But when I played it one, two, three, four times, it started to grow on me. I think just the way it grew on me, it grew on the rest of the world.
RCM: What’s the secret of the song’s popularity?
AD: It’s the pulse of it: “Who let the dogs out? / Woof woof woof woof.” It’s something you want to beef up your chest and sing. It’s something to sing at the top of your voice.
RCM: So who did let the dogs out?
IT: I always put it on the drummer, I say the drummer let the dogs out (laughs).
AD: On Facebook, everywhere, it’s “Hey, who let the dogs out? Did you find out who let the dogs out?” I have one response for them. I say, “Look, if I tell you who let the dogs out, then you’ll stop asking me.”
It will be, “Really Anslem, you’re 98 now and you’re on your dying bed. You want to tell us finally who let the dogs out?” That secret is gonna die with me.
Anslem Douglas has just completed his new CD, Project A.D., a neo soul mix of old school soul and R&B sprinkled with some jazz.