Frankie Smith

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title: "Frankie Smith" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["20th-century-african-american-male-singers", "20th-century-american-male-singers", "20th-century-american-singers", "african-american-songwriters", "american-funk-singers", "musicians-from-philadelphia", "songwriters-from-pennsylvania", "1940-births", "2019-deaths", "21st-century-african-american-musicians", "american-male-songwriters", "unidisc-artists"] description: "American funk musician and R&B/soul songwriter" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Smith" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American funk musician and R&B/soul songwriter ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist "]

Field	Value
name	Frankie Smith
background	solo_singer
birth_date	January 29, 1940
birth_place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
death_date
death_place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
genre	R&B, soul, funk, disco, old school hip hop
occupation	Singer, songwriter
instruments	Vocals, keyboards
years_active	1979–2019
label	Paramount Records, WMOT Records, Amstate Records
associated_acts	The O'Jays, The Spinners
::

| name = Frankie Smith | image = | caption = | background = solo_singer | birth_name = | birth_date = January 29, 1940 |birth_place =Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. |death_date = | death_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | origin = | genre = R&B, soul, funk, disco, old school hip hop | occupation = Singer, songwriter | instruments = Vocals, keyboards | years_active = 1979–2019 | label = Paramount Records, WMOT Records, Amstate Records | associated_acts = The O'Jays, The Spinners | website =

Franklyn Leon Smith (January 29, 1940 – March 8, 2019) was an American funk musician and R&B/soul songwriter. He was best known for his 1981 hit single "Double Dutch Bus".

Career

Smith went to college in Tennessee for elementary education with a minor in music. He became a writer for funk and soul artists such as the O'Jays and The Spinners. In 1972 he would record for Paramount, releasing a single called "Double Dutch" under the name Franklin Franklin, but it failed to become a hit. He was also influential in the careers of the rappers Tone Loc, Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg.

With his 1981 single "Double Dutch Bus", released by WMOT Records, Smith popularized a nonsensical form of slang (from his song "Slang thang", 1981 WMOT, Records), in which "iz" is placed in the middle of a word (for example, the word "place" becomes "plizace"), or the last letters of a word are replaced with "-izzle" ("sure" becomes shizzle). A type of infix, it found greater popularity later on in hip hop and rap with its usage by Snoop Dogg.{{Cite news | last = Crockett | first = Stephen J. Jr. | title = Gizoogle.com, the Wizard of Izzle | newspaper = The Washington Post | date = March 10, 2005 | url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21771-2005Mar9.html | access-date = May 1, 2021}}

Death

Smith died in Philadelphia on March 8, 2019, at the age of 79.

Discography

Albums

• 1981: Children of Tomorrow
• 2006: Frankie Smith and His World Wide Party Crew

Singles

• 1980: "Double Dutch Bus" (#30, US)
• 1980: "Double Dutch"
• 1981: "The Auction"
• 1981: "Teeny-Bopper Lady"
• 1982: "Double Dutch Bus II"
• 1982: "Yo-Yo Champ (From Mississippi)"
• 1985: "Slapp Ya Thigh"
• 1985: "Congratulations for Graduating"

References

References

1. (January 26, 2020). "Indypendent Lens".
2. (14 March 2019). "Little Known Black History Fact: Frankie Smith". Black America Web.
3. Whitburn, Joel. (2003). "Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955 – 2002". Record Research Inc.
4. Hogan, Ed. "Biography: Frankie Smith". [[All Media Guide.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::