Hey Baby (No Doubt Song) - Music and Structure

Music and Structure

"Hey Baby" is a ragga song composed in the key of E minor. It is written in common time and moves at a moderate tempo of 90 beats per minute. The song focuses on programming and lacks live instrumentation. As a result, the band needed four keyboard rigs to recreate the track's sound for live performances, including a Roland AX-1 and an E-mu Proteus 2000. Stefani's vocal range spans over two octaves in the song, from D₃ to E₅.

The song opens with an introduction consisting of a sustained measure of electronic effects followed by two lines from the chorus. In each two-measure line during the first half of the verses, Stefani descends the scale while the keyboard plays the off-beats of the first measure and the electric bass opens the line with a two-note bassline. During the second half of the verses, Stefani's vocals are overdubbed, and the instrumentation becomes more frequent. Each of the two verses is followed by the chorus, where overdubbing is used on Stefani's vocals to produce first inversion and normal form E minor chords. Bounty Killer then toasts the bridge, and after a brief section sung by Stefani, the song closes by repeating the chorus twice.