Kelvin Mercer

Kelvin Mercer
Mercer at Gods of Rap 2019 in Berlin, Germany
Background information
Also known as	Posdnuos Mercenary Plug One Sop Sound Plug Wonder Why Pos
Born	(1969-08-17) August 17, 1969 (age 56) [1] New York City, U.S.
Genres	Hip hop
Occupation(s)	Rapper, record producer
Years active	1988–present [2]
Labels	Tommy Boy, Sanctuary, AOI
Member of	De La Soul

Posdnuos and Maseo of De La Soul at Gods of Rap 2019 in Berlin, Germany

Kelvin Mercer (born August 17, 1969), ^[1] also known by his stage name Posdnuos, Plug 1 and occasionally Pos, is an American rapper and record producer from East Massapequa, New York, ^[3] best known for his work as one third of the hip hop trio De La Soul. Through his work with the group, Mercer is considered to be one of the most consistent and underrated MCs of all time. ^[4] Beginning with the highly acclaimed 3 Feet High and Rising in 1989, Mercer has gone on to release nine albums with De La Soul.

Early life

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

Cameos and album appearances

Year	Artist	Album	Track	With
2000	Rawkus Records	Hip Hop for Respect	One Four Love (Part 1)	Various Artists
2001	Adam F	Kaos: The Anti-Acoustic Warfare	Time 4 da True	Davie
2002	Mint Royale	Dancehall Places	Show Me
2005	Gorillaz	Demon Days	Feel Good Inc
2006	Oh No	Exodus into Unheard Rhythms	Smile a Lil Bit
2007	LA Symphony	Unleashed	Universal
	DJ Jazzy Jeff	The Return of the Magnificent	Let Me Hear U Clap
2008	Jake One	White Van Music	Oh Really	Slug of Atmosphere
	J-Live	Then What Happened	The Upgrade	Oddisee
2009	Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip	Thou Shalt Always Kill	(single, re-release)
	Master Ace and Edo G	Arts and Entertainment	Good Music
2010	Slum Village	Villa Manifesto	Scheming	Phife Dawg, J Dilla and Vice Verse
2011	DJ Shadow	The Less You Know, the Better	Stay the Course	Talib Kweli
	Mac Miller	Official remix	Of the Soul	Raewon
2013	Statik Selektah	Extended Play	Game Break	Lecrae and Termanology
	Marco Polo	PA2: The Director's Cut	Glory (Finish Hard)	A.G., Masta Ace and Dion Jenkins
	Wrekonize	The War Within	Church Road
	Yancey Boys	(Illa J and Frank Nitt) Sunset Blvd.	Beautiful	Botni Applebum
2014	Statik Selektah	What Goes Around	God Knows	Bun B and Jared Evan
2015	Étienne de Crécy	Super Discount 3	WTF	Dave
	Hot Chip	Why Make Sense?	Love Is the Future
2018	The Black Eyed Peas	Masters of the Sun Vol. 1	All Around the World	Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammad
2019	Grand Analog	Mutations	(single)
2020	Potatohead People	Mellow Fantasy	Baby Got Work	Kapok
2022	Robert Glasper	Black Radio III	Everybody Love	Musiq Soulchild
	Phife Dawg	Forever	2 Live Forever	Little Brother and Darien Brockington
	Diamond D	The Rear View	Flyin' High
	Ibrahim Maalouf	Capacity to Love	Quiet Culture
	Wildchild	Omowale	Father's Day [6]	Big Daddy Kane
2023	Planet Hemp	JARDINEIROS: A COLHEITA	NUNCA TENHA MEDO
	Statik Selektah	Round Trip	Round Trip (for Dave)
2024	Ana Tijoux	Vida	Tu sae	Talib Kweli
	Common & Pete Rock	The Auditorium Vol. 1	When the Sun Shines Again	Bilal
2025	Talib Kweli, J. Rawls & Javotti Media	N.A	Native Sons Part II [7]	Maseo, Black Thought, Mike Gee, Afrika Baby Bam & Busta Rhymes

Aliases

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. ^[8] According to some sources, the fact that the words spelled backward are "sounds op [i.e., operative]" is intentional. ^[9]
• 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. ^[10]
• P-Pain – Caricature of the rapper T-Pain. He uses this alias in the song "Supervillainz" by DOOM.

References

1. "Posdnuos - Album Discography". AllMusic. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
2. Greg Tate (November 23, 2019). "De La Soul". Encyclopædia Britannica.
3. "Strong Island's in the house: When hip-hop ruled LI". August 10, 2023.
4. DJ Shadow (September 23, 2011). "DJ Shadow: The Internet Is Not Your Savior". Wired.com. Retrieved September 23, 2011.
5. "De La Soul Yo! MTV Raps interview with Fab Five Freddy on Jan 13 1994". June 26, 2024. Event occurs at 00:54 – via YouTube..
6. "instagram".
7. "spotify".
8. Harrington, Richard (May 18, 1989). "DE LA SOUL'S MIND-BENDING RAP". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved May 19, 2025.
9. "Posdnuos - MusicBrainz". musicbrainz.org. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
10. "De La Soul Interview". www.daveyd.com. Retrieved May 19, 2019.