Noisey have published an interesting interview with Ben Sisto, who has devoted a large chunk of his life to procuring promotional items related to the hit 2000 novelty tune ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’ by Baha Men.
He has turned this odd obsession into an immersive art project, which sits somewhere between an installation and a museum.
As his website explains: “The Museum of Who Let Who Let the Dogs Out Out contains over 250 LPs, CD, tapes, magazines, shirts, toys and other ephemera related to artist Ben Sisto’s investigations into the origins of a well-known musical hook.
“The collection is home to objects from the US, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan and other places, acquired over a period of approximately 7 years.
“Museum highlights include a promotional flying disc available only via a short-lived television ad, rare primary source documents and the crowd-favorite, dancing stuffed animals.”
He tells Noisey how he fell into this project: “I had clicked on some article that was about “Who Let the Dogs Out?,” because it was like the ten-year anniversary of the song then. And I think from that article, I was like, “Oh, I wonder what Wikipedia has to say about this song.” And when I went to the Wikipedia page, I noticed there was this missing citation right at the top. It said the song was recorded off this float by a hairdresser named Keith, but it didn’t have a last name and it didn’t have a citation. So I knew of Wikipedia and Open Culture knowledge-sharing-type websites, and I thought that’d be a funny thing if I fixed that citation, I could tell some of my friends, like, “Oh, I just fixed the Wiki for ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?'”
But what kind of happened was, when I tracked down this guy Keith, which was a little harder than I thought it would be, he ended up being a really, really cool guy, and he had all these other stories about having been the hair stylist for Roxy Music, and being really into steel drum music, and I just had a really good conversation with him. So I kind of thought, “Oh, maybe there’s more here.”
There certainly was more, and what followed was a seven year obsession with what, he readily admits, is a novelty song.
Check out pictures from his musuem, below – and find out more here.
