Kelvin Mercer

Mercer was born on August 17, 1969, in The Bronx, New York City, U.S.^[5]

All three members of De La Soul have used a number of aliases. The following are Mercer's most significant:

• Posdnuos/Pos – Pronounced "poss-duh-noose" (/pɒsdənus/). The name may be a combination of the reversed words sop, meaning "gift," and sound, a name Mercer went by while acting as a high school DJ.^[9] According to some sources, the fact that the words spelled backward are "sounds op [i.e., operative]" is intentional.^[10]
• Plug One – An early concept for 3 Feet High and Rising involved music being transmitted from Mars by three microphone plugs (each one representing a member of the group). Though this idea was abandoned, the titles "Plug One", "Plug Two" and "Plug Three" still became relevant on the album. Mercer's title of Plug One would eventually evolve into Plug Wonder Why, which would be shortened to a homophone of the original, Plug Won.^{[citation needed]}
• Mercenary – Derived from the last name, "Mercer". This name was given to him by DCQ, brother of Mos Def.^[11]
• P-Pain – Caricature of the rapper T-Pain. He uses this alias in the song "Supervillainz" by DOOM.