Oliver 'Power' Grant, Wu-Tang Clan's fashion mogul, dead at 52

Oliver “Power” Grant, the adjacent Wu-Tang Clan affiliate who oversaw the group’s enormously fashionable Wu Wear manner line, has died. He was 52.

Grant’s decease was confirmed by societal media posts from respective Wu-Tang members including Method Man, who wrote “Paradise my Brother harmless Travels!!” nether a station of the 2 together.

“We couldn’t person done it without him,” GZA wrote successful his ain post. “Wu wouldn’t person travel to fruition without Power. His passing is simply a profound nonaccomplishment to america all.”

The radical members’ posts did not mention a origin of death. The quality was archetypal reported by outlets including Okayplayer and Hot 97.

Grant, a puerility person of Wu-Tang co-founder RZA’s older brother, was a important fig successful the sprawling New York hip-hop collective’s ascent. Though helium was not a performing subordinate of the group, helium helped rise superior for aboriginal signaling sessions and structured Wu-Tang’s finances and grounds deals — nary tiny feat for a corporate with specified a immense archipelago of radical and solo projects.

“We knew that if a member got a woody for 150k, helium could support the bulk of it, but it besides would facilitate and assistance the different brothers,” helium told Passion of the Weiss successful 2011. “It was portion of our halfway and question for america to dispersed the wealth astir and assistance brothers eat, without a task out. It was similar we were spot money babies.”

His enactment acceptable a precedent for autonomy and originative power arsenic hip-hop became a commercialized juggernaut successful the ’90s.

“Everything that we learned was hard sound life, you fig it retired arsenic you spell along, and instrumentality cues from those that are actively doing things,” helium said. “I wasn’t a rapper, but the thrill of being a portion of going and wherever they went, it was the inspiration for however it ended up that pb america each to going back, soaking up what we’d absorbed and coming backmost with ‘Protect Ya Neck.’”

He was besides the driving unit down Wu Wear, the group’s wildly fashionable manner enactment that netted tens of millions successful gross and became a fixture of ’90s hip-hop iconography. The enactment was aboriginal revamped arsenic Wu-Tang Brand, and relaunched arsenic Wu Wear successful 2017. He besides had cameos arsenic an histrion alongside Method Man successful the 1998 hip-hop classical “Belly” and 1999’s “Black and White,” and served arsenic an enforcement shaper for the group’s galore LPs.