The 34-year-old politician went from aspiring rapper to New York City mayor-elect, drawing the ire of US President Donald Trump along the way, Sky News writes.
His political rise was topped off with a landslide victory in the New York City mayoral election, which will see him take the oath of office in January to replace incumbent Mayor Eric Adams.
The 34-year-old young socialist democrat is the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of the most populous city in the United States of America. Mamdani is also the youngest person in the last century to be elected to this position.
Before being elected, he served as a member of the Queens State Assembly, a position he was elected to in 2021.
Previously, he was a housing counselor for low-income families, primarily of South Asian descent, and had been actively involved in progressive campaigning and social activism movements.
The new star of American politics was born in Uganda
The new star of American politics was born in Kampala, Uganda. He moved with his family to New York at the age of seven when his father, Mahmoud Mamdani, a distinguished academic, joined the faculty of Columbia University.
He attended Bronx High School of Science, one of the most sought-after public schools in the US, and then Bowdoin College in Maine, where he studied African Studies and co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.
He became a US citizen in 2018 and worked as a foreclosure prevention advisor.
The politician says that job, where he helped low-income homeowners in Queens fight evictions and stay in their homes, inspired him to run for public office.
Trump's attack
US President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence that Mamdani is in the US “illegally”, and some Republicans have called for his deportation.
Mamdani married earlier this year Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-American artist he met on the dating app Hinge.
But before entering political life, Zohran Mamdani was active in the city's rap scene under the name Young Cardamom and later as Mr. Cardamom.
He composed a song titled “#1 Spice” with artist HAB for the 2016 Disney film Queen of Katwe, directed by his mother Mira Nair, an award-winning filmmaker, and another song, Nani, a tribute to his grandmother, was released in 2019.
In October 2016, he spoke to South African radio station Kaya 959 about his contribution to the film, joking that “nepotism and hard work go a long way”. “#1 Spice” is a playful song, where HAB sings, “Bring the flavor of the fish, bring the flavor of the rice/Who's the number one spice?”. Cardamom takes the second verse, rhyming in a combination of languages in a video where he and HAB flirt and dance with Queen of Katwe star Lupita Nyong'o, according to Rolling Stone magazine.
The song dedicated to his grandmother, “Nani”, went viral with Mamdani's political rise.
The video begins with Cardamom scolding her grandmother, played by cookbook author and actress Madhur Jaffrey, telling her that she is “not a good nani”. Then she starts rapping in a whisper about how she's “the best nanny you've ever seen.” For most of the video, Jaffrey lip-syncs to Cardamom's lyrics.
In a 2019 New York Times article about the video, Mamdani revealed that the song was written in 2017 about his grandmother, Praveen Nair, a former social worker and president of the non-profit Salaam Baalak Trust.
According to the American magazine Rolling Stone, Zohran Mamdani aka Cardamom filled his music with odes to his culture.
“He wasn't about to become rap's next sensation, but his funnier moments show he doesn't take himself too seriously, a valuable trait in a political world that prioritizes likability over a candidate,” the magazine wrote in June 2025, suggesting that Mamdani's rapping skills and experience on the microphone helped Mamdani successfully face off against rival Andrew Cuomo in a debate.
