The Welfare Poets are an Afro-Caribbean hip hop group that began to come into fruition up at Cornell University in the early 90's, but it wasn't until around 1997 when Ray Ramirez and Hector Rivera were back from college and Dahu Ala was also back home that the group began to perform locally and move towards the recording of a first album. The group has toured the United States, Puerto Rico, South America, across Europe and even part of the arctic circle (Iceland).