Daily Beast
A new documentary at SXSW attempt to get to the bottom of who, exactly, let the dogs out in the first place. The answer is more complicated than you could imagine.
Keith Wainwright was the proprietor of a salon in London called Smile, which came to fame in the early U.K. punk scene. One year, Wainwright goes on a trip to Trinidad & Tobago, and has the time of his life. He keeps going back, bringing home cassette tapes and CDs with music he heard at Carnival there. British A&R executives began relying on those trips for new samples. That’s how Jonathan King, a record producer for Genesis, got his hands on “Who Let the Dogs Out,” a song on a cassette tape by an artist named Anslem Douglas.
King recorded the song himself and released it under the name Fat Jakk and His Pack of Pets, faking an embarrassing Caribbean accent. The track flopped, but the hook caught the attention of Greenberg, who then gave it to Baha Men, and... you see where we’re going with this.
Sisto interviews Douglas about the origins of the song, which he actually wrote as a female empowerment anthem. Who knew?! He was tired of hearing the derogatory term “skettel,” which translates loosely to slut, being used towards women. Tired of the misogyny, he wanted to write a song that would be a rallying cry.
Replies
I have tried to read every article I found on THE LITIGATION that followed the AMERICANIZATION of this song and it has been quite a long and dramatic story.
But I am STILL WAITING for a TRINI ARTISTE to break INTERNATIONALLY with a LOCAL SOCA SONG!!!
My hope now lies with NAILAH and MISTER KILLA. I know!!! I know!!! MR. KILLA is not from TRINIDAD. But that boy have so much GLOBAL POTENTIAL -- I am willing to accept him as a TRINIDADIAN (and in his interview he said that he might as well be considered a TRINIDADIAN).
How long ah waiting for this GLOBAL PAN STAR and GLOBAL SOCA STAR to emerge from TRINIDAD -- ah cyar count the years no more!!!
Yuh have some more waiting to do.