Frankie Smith

Frankie Smith is an American singer and rapper from Philadelphia best remembered for the 1981 single «Double Dutch Bus», a funky electro-boogie track built around playground jump-rope chants and a distinctive nonsense slang known as izzle-speak, where syllables are inserted into words. That vocal trick, decades later, would resurface as a foundational influence on the slang popularized by hip-hop artists in the 2000s.

Sitting at the intersection of R&B, early rap and funk, «Double Dutch Bus» became a crossover hit, charting on both R&B and pop charts and later being sampled and referenced widely in hip-hop production. The song's playful, percussive vocal delivery and electro-funk instrumentation made it a fixture of early-1980s dance and radio playlists, and a touchstone for producers exploring vocal manipulation and slang-based hooks.

While Smith did not sustain a long chart career beyond this breakout single, «Double Dutch Bus» secured him a lasting place in the history of American urban music, cited frequently as an early bridge between funk-era R&B and the emerging sound of rap.