Frankie Smith - "Double Dutch Bus"

(Debuted May 16, 1981, Peaked #30, 19 Weeks on the Chart)

One of the tired slang phrases that's been done to death over the past ten years is the practice of putting an "iz" in the middle of a word or replacing the end of a word with "izzle." So a term like "For sure" ends up being said as "Fo' shizzle." While rappers like Snoop Dog and Eminem get credited for popularizing the embellishments, they're used in "Double Dutch Bus," which is more than 30 years old.

Frankie Smith was an artist from Philadelphia and "Double Dutch Bus" was his biggest hit. A celebration of both the double jump-rope activity and the Philly-based SEPTA bus system (which issued the Transpass mentioned in the lyrics), it's still fondly remembered more than three decades after its release. Despite reaching #30 on the pop chart, "Double Dutch Bus" was #1 for four weeks on the R&B chart, which made it one of the year's biggest singles on that chart.