Baha Men prepared to unleash more music mania
By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
Romel Blanco remembers the first time he heard the chorus to "Who Let the Dogs Out" by the Baha Men.
"I was in Waikiki and there were these military guys walking around yelling, 'Who let the dogs out? Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof,' " the 22-year-old Kapi'olani Community College student recalls. "And the thing was, there was this group of girls walking right in front of them. I thought, 'Man, that's cold.' "
Who let all these bandmembers out? The Baha Men worked for years before breaking out with their smash "Who Let The Dogs Out." They're in Hawai'i for two shows at Gussie L'Amours.
That was the summer of 2000.
In the months that followed, the song would introduce its bouncy charms across the radio dial, through packed arenas and stadiums, and ultimately into the insipid centripetal orbit of speechwriters and columnists.
Armed with a new release, "Move it Like This," the band behind the bark will be in Honolulu for a pair of performances at Gussie L'Amours today and tomorrow.
The new album has received head pats from reviewers who nonetheless seem loath to unleash another round of Baha Men mania. Indeed, even before they had a chance to release another single, some had already written off the Bahas as a one-hit wonder.
But like other notable single-dingers — Chumbawamba, anyone? — the Bahas put in their miles before hitting it big. Various incarnations of the band have been around for more than 20 years.
• 8:30 p.m. today and tomorrow • Gussie L'Amours • $25 • 836-7883
Before "Who Let the Dogs Out," the band racked up five platinum albums in Japan, and their song "Back to the Island" was featured in tourism advertisements for their native Bahamas. But it took a trio of second-generation Bahas to shove the band up the next, enormous step.
Baha Men with opening act, Obsessed
With Rick Carey (son of guitarist Pat Carey), Omerit Hield (nephew of the original lead singer) and Marvin Prosper, the Bahas updated their Junkanoo sound with touches of rap, reggae and pop. They put it all together with a high-energy re-recording of "Who Let the Dogs Out," itself a 30-year-old chestnut.
The song was originally released on the "Rugrats in Paris" soundtrack and later on a Baha Men album titled "Who Let the Dogs Out." The latter hit No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on Billboard's World Music and Independent Music charts, and the song earned a Grammy as Best Dance Recording.
But that barely reflected the impact it had in, literally, other arenas.
Then-Seattle Mariner Alex Rodriguez made it his theme song. The San Francisco Giants played it at the end of every home win. At the 2000 Subway Series in New York, Mets fans rallied around the song as a statement of philosophical distinction from the crosstown rival Yankees.
Nearly every sports team with a canine mascot embraced the song — from the Connecticut Huskies to the Georgia Bulldogs to the Salukis of Southern Illinois.
Kellie Mikami, co-head cheerleading coach of the University of Hawai'i, said Hawai'i crowds also got into it.
"You'd see people stand up and dance when they played it," she said. "I heard it at a lot of (cheerleading) competitions, too. It was used in a lot of high school programs."
Credit some of this to the ingeniously vague lyrics. There are (we checked) actual verses to the song, but like Blur's "Song 2" ("woo hoo!") and Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll, Part 2" ("Hey!"), it's the chorus that counts.
"Who Let the Dogs Out" is a remarkably versatile everysuch, be it party-hearty call to arms, sexual come-on, or stinging indictment.
Conservative pundit Larry Elders, for example, used the song as the theme of a column criticizing Al Gore's pandering to minority voters. Others hopped on its more literal applications, like the company Evenflo, manufacturer of wire-mesh gates for curious pups.
Or it may simply be, as Mikami explains it, a crowd pleaser: "It has a cool beat," she says. "You can understand the words and has a driving, pumping rhythm."
