WuTang Clan founding member Oliver &x27;Power&x27; Grant dead at 52 Anthony Robledo, USA TODAYThu, February 26, 2026 at 12:15 AM UTC 0 Oliver "Power" Grant attends Hulu's "WuTang: An American Saga" premiere at Metrograph on Sept. 4, 2019, in New York City. Oliver "Power" Grant, a founding member of the hiphop group the WuTang Clan, has died. He was 52. The Staten Islandbased hiphop collective confirmed his death on Wednesday, Feb 25, through an X post. "Rest in Power, Power," the group wrote alongside a video showing interview clips of the foundational member.
Wu-Tang Clan founding member Oliver 'Power' Grant dead at 52
Anthony Robledo, USA TODAYThu, February 26, 2026 at 12:15 AM UTC
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Oliver "Power" Grant attends Hulu's "Wu-Tang: An American Saga" premiere at Metrograph on Sept. 4, 2019, in New York City.
Oliver "Power" Grant, a founding member of the hip-hop group the Wu-Tang Clan, has died. He was 52.
The Staten Island-based hip-hop collective confirmed his death on Wednesday, Feb 25, through an X post. "Rest in Power, Power," the group wrote alongside a video showing interview clips of the foundational member.
No further details were shared about Grant's cause or manner of death.
On Tuesday, Feb. 24, Grammy-winning rapper and also a founding member of the seminal 1990s group, Method Man, reported Grant's death on Instagram. "Paradise my Brother safe Travels!!" he captioned a photo of the two.
GZA, known as "The Genius" of Wu-Tang, also confirmed Grant's death and shared a tribute post on Tuesday. "We couldn't have done it without him," he wrote alongside a photo of him and Grant. "Wu wouldn't have come to fruition without Power."
"His passing is a profound loss to us all. My deepest condolences to the fam," he concluded.
USA TODAY has reached out to Grant's representative for further details.
Grant's death comes as Wu-Tang was named a nominee for the 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class on Wednesday. If inducted, they'd be sitting alongside fellow legendary hip-hop artists including The Notorious B.I.G., Outkast and A Tribe Called Quest.
Born in Jamaica in the early 70s, Grant grew up in the Park Hill Projects in Staten Island with what would later become the Wu-Tang Clan. He was a childhood friend of Wu-Tang co-founder RZA's older brother Divine, and became a key part of the group's inception and successful run.
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Though Grant didn't perform in the group − which at its inception featured nine members RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God and Masta Killa − he played a critical role in driving success not only in the music genre but also in transcending the culture into the world of fashion.
"Two things that make you do good. Either you're inspired, or you're desperate," Grant says in the interview clip shared by Wu-Tang on X. "Everybody was hustling. Our main money maker was the music, then the touring, then the brand."
Outside of music, Grant was a successful entrepreneur, founding the streetwear brand Wu Wear in 1995 and helping it flourish into a fashion empire with retail stores in New York City, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Through its U.S. stores and products sold in Macy's stores, the brand dominated culture coast to coast.
He was nicknamed "Power" for a reason, after all.
"Wu Wear was pretty much like our entry in the fashion biz," Grant said in a 2001 interview with Passion of the Weiss. "But before I was in Wu Wear, I was making and marketing the first Wu records with RZA. Everything that we learned was hard-knock life. You figure it out as you go along and take cues from those that are actively doing things … A lot of it was trial and error. There were no models."
Wu-Tang Clan founding members share tributes to Oliver 'Power' Grant
Raekwon also shared a tribute on Instagram, calling Grant a "5 star General in the army of life" and explaining that Grant's nickname "power" suited him well.
"They don't make em like you anymore," wrote Raekwon. "We gave you that name for many reasons."
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"Revenge of the Nerds" and "Lizzie McGuire" actor Robert Carradine died Monday, Feb. 23, by suicide after living for two decades with bipolar disorder, his brother Keith Carradine confirmed to Deadline. He was 71. "In a world that can feel so dark, Bobby was always a beacon [of] light to everyone around him," the family said in a statement. Carradine starred as Bob Younger in "The Long Riders" alongside his actor brothers Keith and David, as Private Zab in "The Big Red One," and dorky underdog Lewis Skolnick in his breakout role, 1984's "Revenge of the Nerds," as well as its three sequels. Two decades later, he would go on to play Sam McGuire, dad to Hilary Duff in Disney Channel's "Lizzie McGuire."
Other tributes came from Masta Killa, who is mourning his "brother Power," and sending his 'love, peace & blessings to the family."
U-God said he has known "Power" since the rapper was 5, adding, "his mother and my mother were friends, this one hurts bad, you'll be missed."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Wu-Tang Clan founding member Oliver 'Power' Grant dies at 52
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: 2026-02-26T02:46:09Z on Source: RED MAG
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