Oliver: Yami Bolo - Iniquity Workers (21 March 1992)

"Pomp and ceremony.  Are we feeling the pomp and ceremony, ladies and gentlemen?  Are we feeling the pomp? (YES) Are we feeling the ceremony? (YES).  Do you have any idea what the difference is? (NO) Neither do I..." Michael McIntyre at the 2006 Royal Variety Performance.

McIntyre riffed in that routine about how certain words go together without any thought given to what they definitely are.  Hoist with his own petard is another one, though as Angus Deayton once remarked on Have I Got News For You, it all depends on what a petard is.  And so we come to those who can be found in the fabled dens of iniquity - another combination of words which features one that is never seen without the other, or at least not until the mighty Yami Bolo comes along with the brilliant Iniquity Workers.

Having helped me trace an earworm from my youth on his last appearance on this blog, Bolo comes up with something truly special here, an attack on low level criminality especially where it works to stifle those who are trying to get out of poverty by honest means.  Drug dealers seem to be the specific target here because of the spells they weave on the young and vulnerable, and the death toll they contribute to.  Although cast as a lament and beautifully performed, there's a genuine anger that cuts through suggesting that Yami's God is a vengeful God and when Judgement Day comes there will be hell to pay for those offering a taste of heaven through a crack pipe.

Video courtesy of Dolemite