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[phone ringing]

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[seagulls squawking]

[phone ringing]

[man] Yes, Standard office.

[phone clicks]

♪ Who let the dogs out Who, who, who ♪

♪ If I'm a dog, the party is on I got to get my groove on ♪

♪ Comin' for my eye Walking through the place ♪

[fast rapping]

♪ 'Cause I'm the man of the land When they see me they say woo ♪

[people laughing]

[gentle upbeat music]

[audience applauding and cheering]

Hey guys, thanks for being here tonight.

So let's get into it.

Who let the dogs out?

-Like who did let the dogs out? -[audience laughing]

It's one of the great unanswered questions of our time.

How many times has this question been asked,

let alone like heard?

It's, are we alone in the universe?

Where did we come from?

Is there a God?

And who let the dogs out?

[upbeat music]

My name is Ben Sisto and I'm the world's leading expert,

or at least, undisputed expert,

on the song "Who Let the Dogs Out."

I have a growing collection of over 300 items related to this song.

I've been researching "Who Let the Dogs Out"

for about eight years or 20% of my adult life.

"Who Let the Dogs Out" is a song so big,

you got to go international to get to the bottom of it.

So we just touched down in London,

Downtown Los Angeles, Philadelphia,

The Massachusetts College of Art,

Providence, Rhode Island.

Hello, Seattle.

I've taken this live show all over the place.

This question has been asked a lot.

Hey guys, you ready to let the dogs out?

-What? -Do what?

Let the dogs out, you know like,

♪ Who let the dogs out, who

How can a question be asked that many times,

and nobody has bothered to get to the bottom of it?

[clock ticking]

[gentle music]

So, in 2008, I moved to New York.

I was spending a lot of time in places like public libraries.

I was distracted by an article one day

about the ten-year anniversary of a song called, "Who Let the Dogs Out".

-[audience] Woo, yeah! -Oh, you're familiar with "Who Let the Dogs Out,"

-you're in the right room. -[audience laughing]

I read this article, and I was kind of interested,

and I went to Wikipedia.

And something that was on this page

that really stood out to me,

was "Who Let the Dogs Out was heard by a hairdresser"

and this hairdresser does not have a last name.

This is not proper for like citation reasons,

and I thought, "I don't have a job.

I don't have a partner. I'm close to moving in back home, but I can do this.

I can find out who Keith is

and I can fix the Wikipedia page for 'Who Let the Dogs Out.'"

But what I didn't know was, that in fixing this one citation,

I'd end up on the journey of a lifetime.

[audience laughing]

Is anyone in the room not familiar with Baha Men?

We're going to do a little bit of a refresher,

I'm just going to play you a snippet.

This is a song called "Who Let the Dogs Out"

by a group called the Baha Men.

[audience laughing]

[man] For one zillion dollars, the question is,

"Who let the dogs out?"

-[dogs barking] -[door banging]

[alarm ringing]

Who let the dogs out? Who let the dogs out?

♪ Who let the dogs out?

♪ Who, who, who, who

♪ Who let the dogs out Who, who ♪

-Okay. -[audience laughing]

So, to try to get to the bottom of this,

we got to go back and find out who the Baha Men are and where they came from.

And this is going to start in the Bahamas, in Nassau.

[gentle music]

[Isaiah] All started right here, man.

My name, Isaiah Taylor, leader of the Baha Men.

We combine pop and junkanoo together.

It separates us from any other act in the world.

Junkanoo is a type of music,

sort of polyrhythmic drumming, it's like Carnival music.

It's outdoor, festive party music.

[Isaiah] Junkanoo is our festival, we parade twice a year.

-Good to see you, my good man. -Likewise.

This is part of a Junkanoo costume.

It's a lead piece for the parade.

[Ben] Over the years, they had a bunch of changes.

Here you can see they have more of like a '90s Gap vibe going on.

I think this is their best look aesthetically.

Baha Men is bigger than me, or any member of Baha Men.

Why don't you get a younger singer? I said okay.

[Ben] They decided, well, rather than have one new singer,

why don't we have three?

And this was sort of

the idea of Steve Greenberg.

I'm Steve Greenberg, the founder and CEO of S-Curve Records.

The first record that ever came out on S-Curve Records was

"Who Let the Dogs Out", and in fact,

the reason S-Curve Records was formed was

in order to put out "Who Let the Dogs Out."

[Ben] Steve is a music mogul.

He's responsible for the band Hanson.

He's worked at every major label you can think of.

He just has a real ear for like pop sensibility,

for what is going to cross over to the mainstream.

I decide I'm going to finally record this song,

"Who Let the Dogs Out".

I knew that the Baha Men

were the people who I wanted to record the song.

They just made sense to me.

Steve heard the song. But the song was done by someone else.

He goes to Baha Men and says, I have a song.

You got to cover this song. It's "Who Let the Dogs Out."

-And the Baha Men's reaction is, "No." -[audience laughing]

And Isaiah's like, "Ah, we can't record that song. That's already been a hit."

-So he was familiar with it? -Oh yeah, because in the whole Caribbean,

the song had already been a hit.

I said, "No, Isaiah, trust me.

No one outside the Caribbean knows this song.

It could really be a big hit all over the world."

[Isaiah] I didn't want to do the song.

That's why I have to give Steve credit.

Steve will always be a part of Baha Men, always.

[Steve] And it worked.

It was like the Cinderella story.

Baha Men were totally the Cinderella group.

[Isaiah] The band is going to be here.

And we going to have a good time.

You are never bigger than the people that made you.

On S-Curve, Steve, we gave him his first platinum.

We gave him his first Grammy.

We gave him his first Billboard.

We made history together.

[people chattering]

Okay, if you're here because you're a deep Baha Men fan,

I apologize, this is kind of

like where I stop talking about them.

Now, we're going to go back to the early UK punk scene,

and actually a few years before.

Because there, there's this

very, very important salon, called Smile.

[upbeat music]

This is a picture of what the interior of Smile looks like,

and it still looks pretty contemporary.

People who were getting their hair cut are

like Paul McCartney, Jimmy Hendricks,

it's kind of the first place

where if you have a longer men's cut, you can go and be respected.

They understand what the look you want is.

The proprietor of Smile is Keith, Keith Wainwright.

This is the Keith who I was looking for

when I originally saw his last name missing

in the Wikipedia article.

Here I am getting the royal trim in London

from my Wikipedia mystery man,

who turned out to not only be this legendary stylist,

but a huge fan of steel drum music.

[upbeat music]

One of his employees suggested,

"You should really go to Trinidad and Tobago, I think you'd like it."

And he goes down, has a good time, really falls in love

with the people and the culture, and keeps going back.

[Keith] Carnival is a competition.

It's a competition between steel bands,

costumes, and calypso.

And they will be playing the Carnival tunes that year.

"Who Let the Dogs Out" was one of many of those.

I would come back from Trinidad,

very enthused about the music,

and I would then give cassette tapes

to A&R men in the music industry.

What he would do is take these tapes,

bring them back to the salon and play them,

and all these different A&R people

that would hang out in the salon would hear them.

One of the people he was doing styling for was a young Jonathan King.

And King would always meet him there,

right when he knew he was coming back from carnival.

Because he knew he would he have these, kind of like, pop hits to explore.

[lively music]

[Jonathan] What makes a hit? Anything can make a hit.

Why am I good at spotting a hit, I have absolutely no idea.

[Ben] Jonathan King might not be a household name

but this guy discovered the band Genesis,

was an early investor in Rocky Horror,

and had a hand in Chumbawumba's 1997 hit Tubthumping.

My name is Jonathan King,

I'm Britain's greatest living superstar,

and I'm essentially the man behind "Who Let the Dogs Out."

I was played the track by Keith Wainwright, my haircutter.

Keith always goes to Carnival,

always comes back and always gives me a CD

of all the tunes he heard on the float

that he thought were great.

And this time, on one of the CDs that he gave me,

was a track called "Who Let the Dogs Out."

I discovered there was no recording of the song.

So, that's when I went in, with a cod West Indies accent

that's not very good, and made just a little version

of "Who Let the Dogs Out" and threw in a few extra bits

and pieces like... [imitates dog panting]

and various other things that were catchy and so on.

And I had to release it,

I'll release it under the name

"Fatt Jakk and his Pack of Pets."

Wrote it, sang it, my god, I'm brilliant.

Let's take a listen to "Fatt Jakk and his Pack of Pets,"

and this is Jonathan King on lead vocal.

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof ♪

-All right, well I notice none of you are dancing. -[audience laughing]

Which is a little weird because I was playing

the extended kennel club mix for you.

The general reaction to my record was,

"No, this is not a hit song, it won't be a hit."

And I said, "Rubbish." Or, in fact, the word I said was, "Bollocks."

I'm quite good at saying words like bollocks.

I say bollocks strongly and forcefully. So, "Bollocks," I said.

[Steve] Jonathan was a very colorful character

who had really good ears.

You know, he was one of those guys

who really could pick a hit.

"Fatt Jakk and his Pack of Pets,"

he put this record on and it was just about the worst record

I'd ever heard in my life.

I mean it was, the track was really cheesy,

and over the track, there was this guy

who obviously wasn't from the Caribbean,

who was like, pretending to have a Caribbean accent.

But, the song had a really amazing hook.

There's a hit here, maybe it's just not my version.

I don't think he liked Fatt Jakk, or the Pack of Pets.

He certainly didn't like me.

He thought I was a shit, I am a shit.

Now, Jonathan King didn't write this song, though.

So where did Jonathan King get it?

So, this is the story, just a quick recap.

Keith finds a tape, gives it to Jonathan King,

gives it to Steve Greenberg.

Steve Greenberg, Baha Men, the rest is history.

Now, if you notice in the top corner,

there's a song called "Dogie" by a guy named Anslem Douglas.

Who's Anslem Douglas? Well, this is him.

You know it's him because his hat has his first name on it.

[audience laughing]

I'll show you this room, you can decide if I'm obsessed, I guess, or not.

[Anslem] Whoa.

I did not mean for this to happen.

I don't want it to just be like some stuff from Wikipedia that I read.

This group, "Attack of the Mad Axeman", this is a death metal version.

-Of "Who Let the Dogs Out"? You serious? -Yeah, yeah.

It's like a Wu-Tang record, and at some point,

Method Man says, "Who let the dogs out?"

When Douglas wrote this song, he was trying

to respond to this term called skettle,

which kind of translates to like slut,

or whore, or loose person.

And he was like, enough of this.

Enough of this misogyny. I want to write a song

that can be like a rallying point for women.

Like, a song where they can be like,

enough of these dogs, let's get 'em out of here.

So, let's take a listen to this original,

sort of like, calypso, soca, junkanoo

"Who Let the Dogs Out", or then titled "Dogie".

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

I didn't even touch. [chattering]

[gentle music]

"Who Let the Dogs Out" was and is still a big part of my life.

It's kind of like my signature song.

My name happened to be Douglas, my nickname is Dogie,

it's like, oh god, I can't get away from this shit. [laughs]

I'm still amazed that after 20 years,

it's still out there and playing,

and new kids, a new generation is growing up on it.

If you don't know the song "Who Let the Dogs Out," you are living under a rock.

Think about it.

What other song you know,

been out there for 20 years, and kids, every child knows it?

[bright music]

[announcer] Tonight, Fox Sports presents live

from the Safeco Field.

The Mariners have struggled, as everybody knows, lately,

but tonight, it doesn't get any easier.

[upbeat music]

[Ben] Gregg Greene is an emerging talent

within the Seattle Mariners organization,

and he programs a lot of in-game music and sound effects.

I didn't have a song for one of our back up catchers, Joe Oliver.

And, I threw it out there for him.

Alex Rodriguez now wants the song, that I thought was,

you know, we were just having fun with.

And he's like, "Oh, yeah, I like the sound of it, sounds like Miami."

I'm like, "Okay dude, you got it."

[announcer] Curve ball, goes deep to left field

and Alex Rodriguez has number one in the show!

[Gregg] Then he starts playing it

in the clubhouse after wins,

and it becomes the team anthem.

They kind of shot into first place right after that.

We knew Chicago was going to be tough, they got a great offense, they got good pitchers,

and we knew it was going to be a dog fight.

[Gregg] Mariners go on to make the post season,

have a good post season run.

Our team started having success.

The song started having success,

and had success in the sports world.

There it is, Safeco Field.

[Ben] Yeah, there it is.

The question becomes nationally, "Who let the dogs out?"

And it comes back to Seattle.

The music gets tied to that, and the 2000 season,

and the success the team started having.

It's a unique experience to come

and sit with 45 to 50,000 people,

share that experience together,

and to have music bond that experience as well.

-Ben, you ready to hear this in the ballpark? -[Ben] I'm very ready.

Alright, Yasmine, go ahead, give it a roll.

♪ Who let the dogs out

There it is.

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

I really feel like I've made it.

You've reached your mecca. [laughs]

[Ben] It's true, it's true.

[dramatic music]

Hey, Baha Men.

-Oh. -Hey.

[upbeat music]

[Ben] What really makes a hit? What does a song need to break through?

[Steve] There's the song, which is the melody and the words.

There's the production. And there's the performance, which is the vocalist, usually.

People always talk about a formula to write a song.

There's no formula.

It's just vibe, it's just energy.

The beat has to be infectious.

A hit is just magic.

You just hear it, and you know it's a hit.

If songwriters knew the formula,

then that would be under lock and key. That would be top secret.

[woman] There's something in the electromagnetic waves

that just catches us as human, and it moves us to action.

I never told anyone, hey, I came up with the phrase.

Never did, because I didn't.

You know, I know that my brother-in-law was the one

who said, "Hey, you got to do the song.

You got to do the song, 'Who let the dogs out!'"

I said, "All right, Darryl, we'll do it."

So, he was the one who encouraged me to do it.

So, I gave him that credit because he's the one who said do the song.

Here I am with the song, and it feels as though

just as the ship is about to come in,

people just start coming out of the woodwork.

You know, wherever there's a hit, there's going to be a writ.

[Ben] People love to be attached to a hit.

When a hit gets really big,

everyone starts claiming authorship.

[director] Rolling.

[people chattering]

-It's just my name on this one, he didn't bring his. -I didn't bring mine.

Patrick Stephenson and LeRoy Williams, he's got one too.

So, this gentleman, Patrick Stephenson,

and his partner LeRoy Williams,

one day they hear "Who Let the Dogs Out"

and they're like, what's going on? We wrote that.

And they were promoting Wreck Shop Radio.

They did this jingle,

and it had the "Who Let the Dogs Out" refrain.

Let's take a listen.

So, Patrick Stephenson takes Anslem Douglas to court.

We're all in the studio, and Anslem gets a copy of it,

Anslem does his thing.

He changes it, he turns it what not, aha!

But, we were passionate about creating

and not taking care of the business.

And the business bit us in the end.

[Ben] So, at this point, this is when you decided to sue--

It wasn't a matter of decide to sue,

we wanted to know what our rights were.

Everybody wants to say they wrote a hit song.

I'm like, no dude, we wrote the song.

We allege that in late 1995 or early 1996,

we were in the process of writing all these jingles,

and during this process we conceived of the phrase "Who Let the Dogs Out,"

and that specifically, they conceived

of that phrase in combination

with the sound of dogs barking,

and that nobody else came up with that.

Douglas countered, but Douglas ended up signing a declaration asserting

that Stephenson and Williams were the originators

of the hook, and that the hook is what he based his song on.

We had to come to an agreement, 'cause we just walked away.

It could have been so simple, but it wasn't,

and for five years the industry basically owned us.

We got screwed over, but we know what we did.

-Yeah, but, we made mistakes too. -Yeah.

Now, we're going to do a bit of a sidestep.

So, this is Anslem Douglas' former friend, Ossie Gurley.

And Ossie Gurley worked with Anslem Douglas on "Dogie",

and on the album, he has credits as an arranger.

-[upbeat music] -[dogs barking]

[Ossie] I guess I just have an ability to hear things,

and know when they're going to go beyond.

Music is the love of my life.

You're from the Caribbean so,

you have no choice but to be who you are.

It's energy, it's life, it's love,

it's happy music, happy people.

You can go wherever you want to go, you'll always have that heat

and that Caribbean energy, right?

Anslem came to me with some, with the lyrics, and melody.

So, I said, "Okay, do your final vocals,

and I'll do all the music."

We became like brothers.

But, brothers until the song became a hit, you know.

And things did change.

There was a thing in the Caribbean,

where there was little value on people who produce music.

And it was just, I wrote the lyrics, that's my song. I was advised to get a lawyer.

So after that, we battled and battled and battled for years.

Behind every hit, there's some law suit.

So, I figured well, okay, here's a lawsuit.

[Ben] So while Gurley and Douglas are fighting

over writing credits, another player enters the mix.

Wingspan Records representing the artist Chuck Smooth,

who had also put out a song called "Who Let the Dogs Out."

This version has a sample of Douglas' voice,

making things even more complicated.

Wingspan offered me a publishing deal at the time.

Everything looked good and we signed on.

So here's a picture of rapper Chuck Smooth on the left,

and then with the glasses, that's his partner Scott Brooks.

-[dog barking] -[upbeat music]

Alright, Chuck Smooth.

Anslem Douglas put out "Dogie" in 1997,

Chuck Smooth put out his "Who Let the Dogs Out" in 1998.

So then, Gurley retroactively assigned them a copyright

to a date after the Douglas version

but before their version,

and then sued Anslem Douglas for songwriting credits.

Well, Wingspan was always supportive.

Lita Rosario represented Wingspan.

She's a godsend in my life.

My name is Lita Rosario,

and I'm an entertainment lawyer in Washington, D.C.

And my company is called Wise Girl Entertainment

and also Lita Rosario PLLC.

Songs are usually collaborations.

And Ossie came up with the musical track, with the chorus,

and then Anslem would come in the studio,

and they would do the lyrics.

So, typically, the music gets 50% ownership,

and the lyrics get 50% ownership.

You end up with equal shares if there's no written agreement.

So, if there's two people, it's 50/50.

The legal battle lasted approximately six years.

There were a series of lawsuits that were filed

to determine who the ownership of the song was.

This court case actually ruined a lot of relationships.

[Ben] So, the litigation with Gurley and Wingspan,

that all kind of settled out of court?

[Anslem] Yeah, after about five years.

And it wasn't about the money,

it still isn't about the money.

It's about the betrayal.

I felt the sense of betrayal coming from somebody who I considered my friend.

We've heard this a million times, that, there's no business like show business.

It's the only business where you can put literally three minutes and 20 seconds

of material together and make a $100 million.

Can you think of anything else you can do that with?

Uh, sub-prime loans?

[both laughing]

[crowd cheering]

[Ben] But, none of this really matters,

because something happened two years prior, in 1994,

that makes this whole five year court battle seem laughable.

All right now, this next song

is going to be my next release.

It's called "You're a Dog."

"You're a Dog"? 20 Fingers, kind of similar to Anslem Douglas,

they were unhappy with a lot of dance floor misogyny.

We got all these negative songs about women,

I want to write to where the women could have so much fun.

Gillette was a receptionist

at a medical center or something like that.

[Ben] Gillette had no real musical background?

Zero, even though she was the face,

and the artist, those were our records.

So, I came up with the hook.

The chorus of it, not very interesting to me,

but there's another refrain in it, that is very interesting.

Let's take a listen.

♪ What's up

♪ Who let them dogs loose

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

Sounds familiar, right?

I think we say, "Who let them dogs loose,"

and they say, "Who let the dogs out" or something?

Contextually though, loose and out, they both imply

-that previously contained dogs are now freed. -Right.

You're telling me, today,

you're telling me you wrote this?

It was a long time ago, but you know,

when you're making those kind of records,

especially back then, those were party records,

and there were a lot of chants.

Everybody was barking on songs,

and it was a big mix-tape era. Especially from Miami.

You would get a lot of those party mix tapes in.

In the '90s, everybody was sampling.

I don't want to sound unethical, but that's the way to do it.

So then, you know, it kind of made me think,

like you know, maybe I did hear it somewhere.

I don't want to discredit these guys, but we were first.

[Ben] The very first time

you heard Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out,"

what was going through your mind?

Those motherfuckers.

-[both laughing] -No, I'm playing.

Now, we're going to do another switching of gears.

We're talking about copyright.

In a little bit more detail than we've talked already.

I'd like to invite you to step into my courtroom.

A presentation within a presentation, ladies and gentlemen.

[audience laughing]

Well, if you just play this.

Yeah, play it without the barks.

In copyright infringement cases, access is very important,

and so is substantial similarity.

You know, it does make you wonder,

this whole court approved

or agreed upon mainstream dogs narrative,

maybe there's more to it than that.

So, John, I sent you all these audio files

to kind of compare and contrast.

Maybe do a little bit of beat matching.

[John] So, I'm just going to overlay

the "Who Let the Dogs Out", the barks.

One of the pillars of copyright is this idea

of substantial similarity.

There's intrinsic and extrinsic tests

that you apply to audio files to determine that.

Basically, what that means is, if you played different audio files for an ordinary person,

would they say, "Yeah, these sound alike,"

and then the other test is,

if you played these for an expert, in this case, that's you,

how closely do these actually match up?

Are the waveforms similar?

Are the patterns similar?

Is it a little deeper than just sounds alike?

Because two people can come up with the same concept,

but if you can prove that they would have been aware

of each other, that's really where you can start making some claims.

This is Gillette and 20 Fingers "You're a Dog" 50/50 mixed

with the Stephenson and Williams song, because they came out around the same time.

♪ Who let them dogs loose

Four percent faster 'cause we're gonna try to speed up the Stephenson and Williams.

♪ Who let them dogs loose Woof, woof, woof, woof ♪

♪ Who let them dogs loose Woof, woof, woof, woof ♪

You can even look, there's the bark, there's the bark there.

And they're all the exact same. No time change, no anything.

[Ben] Yeah, the pattern is exactly the same.

[John] And that's the exact same.

♪ Who let them dogs loose

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

I would say that they're similar.

I would say they're substantially similar.

Are either of you familiar

with an artist named Sandra Gillette?

[Both] No.

[Ben] Are either of you familiar

with the group 20 Fingers?

-Does that sound familiar? -[both] No.

Is he related to Edward Scissorhands? I dunno.

-Or Sticky Fingers? -No, I've never, no.

[Ben] In particular, a song called "You're a Dog"?

-No. -No.

-[Ben] Okay, -[grunts]

I did want to play you this record too,

because I think that this is the missing link.

Let's see, club mix, album mix...

♪ Who let them dogs loose Woof woof, woof, woof ♪

-Who let them dogs what? -Loose.

♪ Who let them dogs loose

Okay.

♪ Who let them dogs loose

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let them dogs loose

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

-[Ben] This is 1994. -[John] 1994.

[Ben] A full year plus

before Stephenson and Williams recorded.

What does this mean from a legal standpoint?

I did play it for one lawyer,

but I don't think hearing it made her particularly happy.

[phone ringing]

Copyright means just that, the right to copy.

So as long as we didn't copy each other

and we both came up with the song,

we both have a right to market and produce the song.

Neither one of us can stop the other.

-[sirens wailing] -[gentle music]

[Ben] What is "Who Let the Dogs Out"?

It's made up of just a few short monosyllabic words.

Who let the dogs out.

And this is followed by a series of barks.

People of all ages love to bark.

We call each other dog as a term of endearment.

They're our best friends and members of our families.

All of this adds up to a pop hook recipe that's hard to beat.

There's no question mark so it's not even a question.

So if it's not a question, then what does it all mean?

Who are these dogs? How did they get out?

Where are they going? And why should we even care?

What is this question? It's like what Meatloaf won't do for love.

It's one of the great unanswered questions of our time.

It's an open question, if the hook is even a question to begin with.

If it is, let's remember that in a lot of these tracks,

the dogs are men behaving badly

and these men, they've always been out.

Why you even around here?

Move your dog.

I don't mind being a dog and you know why?

♪ 'Cause a doggie is nothing If he don't have a bone ♪

♪ A dog needs a bone

We live in a woman's world.

It used to be a man's world and that is no more.

Carnival is woman, woman is boss, women run things.

[Ben] Would an attempt to answer the question

of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" be problematic

in that an answer might potentially absolve

these dudes of responsibility? It's a lot to unpack.

The song itself is almost 50% "Who let the dogs out."

The Macarena? 12% Macarena.

All I remember from that song is Macarena so you can really see

that "Who Let the Dogs Out?" is very much a hook.

The song is a delivery mechanism for a hook.

Maybe I've thought about this a bit too much.

While the phrase "Who Let the Dogs Out"

has stood the test of time, it's position

at the top of the Billboard charts was pretty short lived.

After about a year of constant barking,

I think the world had had enough.

Hello.

-[Ben] Do you know the song "Who Let the Dogs Out?" -Yes.

[Ben] What do you think about it?

I kind of think it's annoying.

[upbeat music]

[dog panting]

♪ Who let the dogs out though Who, who, who ♪

♪ Who let the dogs out Who let those dogs out ♪

This run of peak dog fever kind of had to come to an end.

And Gregg Greene says it came to an end

at the start of the next Mariners' season.

Fans were like "Fuck this song, we're done.

We don't want to hear it anymore. It's just played out."

[Gregg] By that time, every NFL team was playing it,

every NBA team was playing it,

every college football team was playing it.

We let the dogs out and it was time to put them back away.

Who Let the Dogs Out, woof, woof.

♪ Who let the, who let the

It's a song about dogs and letting them out

♪ Who let the, who let Who let the dogs out ♪

[Ben] So love it or hate it, we are in way too deep to turn back now.

And we keep hearing this mention of a Miami sound

so I think there's only one place to look next.

We're going to Florida.

[upbeat music]

Jacksonville, Florida, 1992.

Miami Bass is booming down there, parties all night,

big speakers, big sound systems.

-[Joe] It was booty and bass. -[Mamado] The reason they say Miami Bass,

'cause it was the rap from Miami, but it's a type of bass

with a very low kilohertz.

These two guys down there,

Brett and Joe, are Miami Boom Productions,

B-Nastie and Miami J.

This is Ed White, this is where we went to school. Brett and I don't even like

-to look at it anymore. -Yo, look over here, there's woods!

[Joe] We never went to the school, we never actually went.

Brett was an aspiring rapper and Joe,

he was pretty handy with early recording gear

and they came together.

San Marco's always been San Marco.

It's one the historic districts, it's somewhat upscale although a bit mixed.

[Ben] The photo shoot here was specifically done

to promote "Who Let the Dogs Out," this demo tape.

[Joe] Yeah, it's spring of '93 to promote the song.

The look on my face.

Why so serious, Joe?

[Joe laughs] Brett was hard and scary.

I was not, it was all a front for sure.

[Ben] Describe what's going on in those photos,

what are you guys thinking?

"Who Let the Dogs Out?"

[upbeat music]

♪ Bam

[Brett] Mamado was one of the most well-known for making music,

producing music here in Jacksonville.

She was definitely one of the studios we decided we were going to go to

when we started getting serious about making bass music.

When this guy got to rapping.

The exact words 'Do said were, with a big smile,

she said "You all tore that microphone up!"

and I said , "We're in".

I just couldn't believe 'cause the look that they had,

you'd think they would go to college and be doctors

and lawyers and stuff and then when they start rapping,

I was like, "Oh my god,"

white kids like coming in, this is phenomenal.

[Ben] You guys wrote a song called "Who Let the Dogs Out."

-We did. -Correct.

November 30th 1992.

This is the only remaining demo of all of their songs.

We are going to though, listen to the lead off track

on this demo, "Who Let the Dogs Out."

♪ Party people

Miami Boom Productions also has all of this other stuff.

The lyrics sheet here is really interesting too.

Where Joe was writing a lot of his lyrics was at Little Caesars.

Here in my hands I'm holding some pieces of ephemera.

Do you remember these objects?

-Yes, Little Caesars bread bags. -Brett's handwriting.

When you're at work and a good line hits ya or a good hook hits ya,

or somethin' hits ya, you got to write with what you got

and this is what we had, Little Caesar's bread bags.

Played it off, saw some girls, started acting wild.

'Cause that works, of course.

Did you start writing or write any part

of "Who Let the Dogs Out" here at this Little Caesar's?

-I would say yes. I would say yeah. -Odds are really high.

Let me look at my lyric sheet one more time.

Yah, I think the odds are really high.

We have these two kids with a great story but no hard evidence.

In copyright cases you need that,

you need some kind of physical media

or you need hard dated digital media

or else you just don't really have a case.

Joe was able to dig up something in his archives

that made me even happier. Floppy discs.

-So these are the discs you bought at this K-Mart. -Yes

-25 years ago? -[both] Yes.

Two of the discs are these two,

"Who Let the Dogs Out Samples"

and "Who Let the Dogs Out Chants",

also in the box is a receipt from K-Mart

in Jacksonville, Florida dated 1992.

-We're just here to return them. -Yeah, we're done with them now.

-[Brett] Yeah, we got to put the dogs back in. -[Joe] Yeah.

I actually had someone call me and they were like

"Hey, I heard your and Joe's song on the radio", I was like, "No, you didn't."

And he was like, "Oh yeah, I swear to you, 'Who Let the Dogs Out,'

I just heard it on the radio".

We flipped it on and I'm just thinking somebody ripped off our track.

I was like shocked

just 'cause my first thought was they sold it.

It was really no different.

It's like they took the whole overall hypeness of it

and it sound exactly the same.

I've seen this happen so many times to different people.

When I think about the times making this music, it was phenomenal.

It was the best times of my life.

The bottom line is I know where we believe it came from.

[Joe] There's three names missing from the song and they're sitting right here.

[Brett] Yeah, we should own that song.

[Joe] Yeah.

[Ben] These double-sided, double density disks,

what's on them?

[Brett] Proof, that's what's on those disks.

[Ben] If I was to put these disks into a home computer

with mold on them over the years or just deterioration,

that top magnetic layer can just fly right off

so I really wanted to make sure that I did it right

and I wanted these things looked at professionally.

My name is Istvan Fabian

and my day job is to work for Sony,

I work on the PlayStation

and when I'm at home I have a hobby

which is data preservation.

[dramatic music]

What you have is a very special disk code color here.

that directly talks to the floppy disk drive

and tries to decode what data is stored on the disk.

The sampler device communicates with the disk drive

and tries to match the description of the disk format

to what is actually being found on the disk.

Take a look.

[Ben] So this is a visualization

of the contents of those floppy disks

and basically what this animated gif is doing is blasting

through all of those sectors.

I won't get into it beyond that, but green is good

so we knew that these were clean and readable and that I should

be able to put them into a device without blowing them up.

Now in the header information, like the text of the file,

we were able to find some hints

that they was probably recorded

on an EMUSP-1200 or Emulator 2 keyboard.

So if we're able to track down this specific sampler,

pop in the disks from Miami Boom

then we hear these dogs samples,

we may have just found a holy grail.

The proof we've been searching for.

This is the SP1200 drum machine made by E-mu

and it was released in August 1987.

You can sample from records or from your voice

and put it in there and manipulate it.

All right, first disk I'm going to give you,

"Who Let the Dogs Out Chants."

[bright music]

[Adrian] Loading sequences and sounds.

I can see here it says complete. What's the next step?

[Adrian] Next step is you can just hit a button.

So each time I hit one of these, it's going to play a different sample?

-Yep. -All right, let's give it a go.

♪ Woof, woof, woof

♪ We don't need no water Let the ♪

Oh, another famous chant

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

-[Adrian] I think that's your holy grail. -[Ben] Oh yeah, dude.

♪ Who let the dogs out Woof ♪

And that's the bark, that's amazing

♪ Who let the dogs out Woof, woof, woof ♪

[men screeching]

[man scatting]

♪ Take it down

[Adrian] It's a time capsule. The range of sounds is very true

to the era between 1990 and '92.

Everyone's main goal was probably

to get hold of one of these.

♪ Burn mother

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh

So these are all original.

♪ Who let the dogs out

You're saying that would have come

from them plugging in a microphone into the SP and recording that?

It's not a sample you've heard before?

[Adrian] Right, someone created that with their voice.

We exported this.

♪ Woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

So that's like the raw wave export from these disks.

So let's do another recap, this time in reverse order.

Baha Men, newly fronted

by three youthful vocalists release their smash hit in 2000.

They'd gotten it from their long-time manager,

Steve Greenberg, at S-Curve Records.

Steve had gotten it from Jonathan King who was passed the mix tape

from my Wikipedia mystery man, Keith Wainwright.

Keith had come into possession of the tape

in Trinidad during Carnival and what was

on that tape was a song called "Doggi" by Anslem Douglas.

As soon as the Baha Men version became popular,

a whole bunch of legal battles started popping up.

We've got Patrick Stephenson and LeRoy Williams

from WBLK in Buffalo suing Douglas and Ossie Gurley.

We've got Wingspan Records working with Gurley.

And let's not forget Gillette and 20 Fingers

who are somewhere over here for now,

never really got involved with the legal disputes, but it's a mystery

as to exactly where Manny Mohr got the phrase,

"Who Let Them Dogs Loose."

And let's not forget the Gregg Greenes of the world, the behind-the-scenes players

who helped catapult this song into the spotlight.

And now all of the sudden we have these floppy disks

which seem to be hard evidence that two teenagers

from Jacksonville, Florida,

came up with the hook way before anybody else.

So is this it?

Are we about to solve one of life's greatest mysteries?

I'm going to play you a kind of montage of the songs,

give us a refresher of what we've been through tonight.

Let's take a listen.

♪ Party people

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who Let them Dogs Loose

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out Woof ♪

Okay, sorry I didn't let that one fade

but I think we've had enough.

[audience laughing]

So who let the dogs out?

We've seen a bunch of candidates tonight.

Every time I do this talk,

someone after is like "No man, you've got it all wrong.

I know the real answer."

Who Let the Dogs Out?

I'm going to say...

[phone ringing]

[birds chirping]

[Ben] There's an audio or video recording?

[John] There's absolute proof.

-[gentle music] -[film whirring]

"The entire town turned out to bellow that magical question,

who let the dogs out?"

My name is John Michael Davis.

Dowagiac, Michigan let the dogs out.

-[whistle shrilling] -[upbeat music]

[man] When I was growing up

everybody was going to be a Chieftain.

When we had that run, we set records for most points scored, most passing yards.

[announcer] One yard touchdown run

and this one is 37-0 to Dowagiac.

[man] Dowagiac was where it was at

and we were going to knock the hell out of you.

Dowagiac, dog patch, same thing.

Dog patch, they'd just say dog patch and we flipped it on its head.

[man] And now being from Dog Patch was not an embarrassment anymore.

It was something to kind of poke your chest out about

and say "Yeah, that's where we're from and we're proud of it."

[man] Our key factor was our coach, Coach Thomas.

We were his dogs and who let the dogs out, that's where that came from.

[Bernard] There we were, we were a small town,

we were an underdog, we barely made it into the playoffs

and we become the toast of the town and the State Champion

and we were the team that almost didn't happen.

All the good memories in your life have a soundtrack and the soundtrack

to our State Championship football team was "Who Let the Dogs Out?"

[announcer] Football Championship on the line in what might be just

the most exciting final here in 1990.

Two clubs that really can put some points on the board.

♪ Who let the dogs out Woof, woof ♪

♪ Who let the dogs out Woof, woof ♪

♪ Who let the dogs out Woof, woof ♪

♪ Who let the dogs out Woof, woof ♪

♪ Who let the dogs out

There was no stopping them

and it was like just building momentum.

The whole entire town embraced it

and it began the trademark of Dowagiac.

It was magical. It was a Disney movie, really.

[gentle music]

[toy train whirring]

[man] It is amazing what a sporting event can do

for a small community.

[man] We were a shot in the arm when it was needed.

We boosted these people's morals when it was needed

It lifted the community spirits and gave them hope.

That football team kind of brought the community together

and that song brought the football community together

even more because now we had a common denominator.

This is the town where this chant was pushed into the stratosphere.

[man] Here in the capital of dogpoundville,

we let the dogs out.

I don't know what other people are saying

but I know we saying it in 1990,

now if you can pre-date 1990 then you are good to go

but right now we think we're the big dogs on the block.

[crowd cheering]

[all chanting] ♪ Who, who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof Who let the dogs out ♪

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof Who let the dogs out ♪

♪ Who, who, who Let the dogs out ♪

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Who, who, who Let the dogs out ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Who, who let the dogs out

♪ Who, who, who Let the dogs out ♪

♪ Who, who, who let the dogs

[Isaiah] You don't own anything in life.

Someone else is going to take it,

then someone else is going to take it.

You have to give people their props,

you know you can't just try

to take the credit for yourself.

That's why I have to give Steve credit.

[Ben] Steve Greenberg, who let the dogs out?

[Steve laughs]

That's a funny question. So whoever came up with that hook was a genius,

in that moment.

Who do I think let the dogs out?

I would say Anslem and Ossie let the dogs out.

Well, I would say Anslem and myself

and maybe Patrick and LeRoy too, who knows.

[laughs] I don't know.

We did.

[laughs] I did.

[both] We did, yeah.

I wrote "Who let the dogs out."

I don't even have any of this stuff.

-[Ben] Jonathan. -Yes

-[Ben] Who let the dogs out? -Woof, woof.

-So Gregg. -Yes.

Who let the dogs out?

[laughs] That's a great question.

I let them out here, I let the dogs out.

[laughs] I did, I let them out.

And when I want them back, they're coming to me.

[both] We did.

We did, we let the dogs out

and they took it and ran with it.

-We let the dogs out. -Yeah.

[people chattering]

[John] I'm not the one that turned it into a record,

I'm not the one that made it a beat and put a rap over it.

That's not really the point.

The only sting is that it doesn't feel like

they know what they have.

They have this powerful catalyst.

One little moment that was pretty cool

and has shaped some part of our culture,

and can be a medium for much more.

You don't understand that you have a gift.

The cadence and the full force

of the chant, not,

♪ Who let the dogs out Who, who ♪

No, no, no that's not going to get it, it's not going to dig.

I mean, maybe you need a study behind it

but if you go,

♪ Who, who let the Lions out

I bet they'd win a Super Bowl.

I guarantee they win a Super Bowl

and the whole state of Michigan is going to be like,

♪ Let the Lions out, who

And it's over.

Snap, the worst team in the world,

the most heartbreaking team in the world is going to win

and that's what I believe.

People have to believe

and they have to want to put everything in and go for gold.

It's like the hope and what's instilled inside of us,

in our society.

The system of interactive communication

and this network that we share globally

through our language, everything you say

to everyone you meet somehow carries.

We do borrow and I think it's okay.

I do not believe that they're imitations.

I believe in the authenticity of creativity

and it comes from a magical, mystical kind of place.

It's so wonderful to understand how close we really are,

that is kind of what art is supposed to be on a level.

Sound is light concentrated,

like a laser, we're concentrating light

and it's just moving around the planet in waves,

it's surreal, the idea that one person can touch the lives

of every person on the planet.

You may not even know that you're doing it.

You may not even know that you've already done it.

I love to connect those dots,

even if it's very like reaching sometimes, it's jazz.

[gentle music]

[crowd cheering]

[Ben] I do appreciate you guys being here tonight

for this somewhat abridged but also probably too deep look

into the history of "Who Let the Dogs Out."

We've traveled from Seattle to England.

We've seen a bunch of candidates tonight.

-[crowd cheering] -Oh!

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

I didn't expect to be on the jumbotron.

Glad that happened.

It's just a song that I do think belongs

to popular culture at this point.

In a way, we all let the dogs out.

-[dogs barking] -[gentle music]

[tattoo machine buzzing]

[Mamado] I've only been tattooing like three and a half, four years.

-Is this your first dog bone tattoo? -Mm-hmm.

I've been researching this song for like eight years,

yeah, it's part of me.

[Mamado] So let me get the saran wrap for you.

I like it a lot. What do you think?

-If I may, can I ask you something in return? -[Ben] Yes.

Okay, so what made you do this and why this specific song?

I mean there are literally millions of songs out there.

I'm not good at making music,

I'm a mediocre, at best, artist.

I'm okay at my job but this,

there's nothing else that I'm the expert at.

So I moved to New York about a decade ago

and back then I didn't have a partner or a job.

I didn't have a beautiful baby.

[gentle music]

I used to have a museum in my house,

but now I have a nursery. So yeah, life's changing.

It definitely feels like my dog's research is coming

to an end and maybe someone else can take it from here

or maybe not, I don't know.

So what I'd like to do in lieu of like applause

or throwing roses at me, I don't how this is going to end

but I would really like to end this

with a really solid group chant.

If you enjoyed what you heard tonight,

or you're just looking to get out of here fast

and feel like you'll do anything to make that happen

please bark along a few times with this dogapella.

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

Thanks very much guys. Thanks for coming.

[audience applauding and cheering]

♪ The party was nice The party was bumpin' ♪

♪ Hey, yippie, yi, yo

♪ And everybody havin' a ball

♪ Hah, ho, yippie yi yo

♪ I tell the fellas "Start the name calling" ♪

♪ Yippie yi yo

♪ And the girls respond To the call ♪

♪ I heard a poor man shout out

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ I see de dance people Had a ball ♪

♪ 'Cause she really Want to skip town ♪

♪ Get back gruffy Back scruffy ♪

♪ Get back you Flea-infested Mongrel ♪

[dog panting]

♪ Going to tell myself Hey, man, no get angry ♪

♪ Yippie, yi, yo

♪ To any girls Calling them canine ♪

♪ Hey, yippie, yi, yo

♪ But they tell me, hey man It's part of the party ♪

♪ Yippie yi, yo

♪ You put a woman in front And a man behind ♪

♪ I heard a woman shout out

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Say, a doggy is nothing If he don't have a bone ♪

♪ All doggy hold your bone All doggy hold it ♪

♪ A doggy is nothing If he don't have a bone ♪

♪ All doggy hold your bone All doggy hold it ♪

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ I see the dance people Had a ball ♪

♪ 'Cause she really Want to skip town ♪

♪ Get back gruffy Back scruffy ♪

♪ Get back you Flea-infested mongrel ♪

♪ Well, if I am a dog The party is on ♪

♪ I got to get my groove I got my mind done gone ♪

♪ Do you see the rays comin' From my eye ♪

♪ Walking through the place

♪ The Diji man Breaking it down ♪

♪ Me and my white shorts

♪ And I can't see color Any color will do ♪

♪ I'll stick on you that's Why they call me pit bull ♪

♪ 'Cause I'm the man of the land When they see me they say, woo ♪

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out

♪ Woof, woof, woof, woof

♪ Who let the dogs out