Grant was born in New York City and raised in
the Bronx. His father, Samuel, was a locksmith and carpenter at
Montefiore Hospital, and his mother, Theresa (née Maxwell), was a teacher. He attended Mount St. Michael Academy High School,
Bronx, New York. He first gained widespread attention as a poet and performer when he was featured in the documentary
SlamNation, which followed him and the other poets of 1996
Nuyorican Poetry Slam Team (
Saul Williams,
Beau Sia and
Jessica Care Moore) as they competed at the 1996
National Poetry Slam. Grant took the name "muMs" when he was 20 and performing in a rap group. Due to retaining traces of a childhood lisp, a friend suggested he call himself “Mumbles”, which Grant shortened to "muMs", as an acronym for "manipulator under Manipulation shhhhhhh!" muMs performed his poetry on seasons 2, 3 and 4 of HBO's
Def Poetry Jam, and was a member of New York City's
LAByrinth Theater Company. In October 2007, muMs played a role in
A View from 151st Street, a play about people trying to reconstruct their lives after gunfire. In September 2014, muMs wrote and performed "A Sucker Emcee", hip-hop and slam poetry, based on his personal recollections. In February 2015, muMs' play, titled
Paradox of the Urban Cliché, about a young couple living in Harlem, was performed at the Wild Project as part of the Poetic Theater Productions's Poetic License festival. In February 2015, muMs played a role in
The Insurgents, a play about rage among the free, brave, and disenfranchised, produced by LAByrinth Theater Company. Grant guest-starred in the 2016 Netflix series
Luke Cage as Reggie "Squabbles", and was featured as a recurring character, Ricardo, on three episodes of
Louis C.K.'s web series
Horace and Pete. He appeared in two films by
Steven Soderbergh, and had supporting roles in films including
Bringing Out the Dead,
Bamboozled,
Birdman, and
Good Time.
Death Grant died in
Wilmington, North Carolina on March 24, 2021, aged 52. His manager, Sekka Scher, said the cause was complications of diabetes. ==Filmography==