Zohran Mamdani S Story From Mixtapes To Nyc Mayor

Video by The Breakfast Club. Zohran Mamdani laid out a bold, people-first agenda for NYC, declaring, “People just want dignity and they want to feel safe.” Zohran Mamdani, a Ugandan-born, Astoria-based New York State Assembly member and democratic socialist, joined The Breakfast Club (video above) to discuss his journey from aspiring rapper to progressive politician. Selling mixtapes on buses taught him how to tell stories, face rejection, and engage strangers, skills he says now fuel his political organizing. Mamdani’s campaign centers on three bold policies: To fund these changes, he proposes raising $10 billion through higher taxes on corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

Specifically, he would match New Jersey’s 11.5% corporate tax rate and add a 2% tax on those earning more than $1 million a year. Video by Young Cardamom & HAB. Kanda (Chap Chap) is their 2015 debut single featuring Zohran Mamdani. Philip Marcelo, Associated Press Philip Marcelo, Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — When he announced his run for mayor last October, Zohran Mamdani was a state lawmaker unknown to most New York City residents. But that was before the 34-year-old democratic socialist crashed the national political scene with a stunning upset over former New York Gov.

Andrew Cuomo in June's Democratic primary. WATCH: Zohran Mamdani addresses supporters after winning NYC mayoral race On Tuesday, Mamdani completed his political ascension, again vanquishing Cuomo, as well as Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, in the general election. Zohran Kwame Mamdani[c] (born October 18, 1991) is an American politician who is the mayor-elect of New York City. A member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, he is set to become New York's first Muslim and Asian American mayor. Mamdani has served as a member of the New York State Assembly for the 36th district since 2021, representing the Queens neighborhood of Astoria.

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair. After spending three years in Cape Town, South Africa, when Mamdani was five to seven years old, his family moved to the United States, settling in New York City. Mamdani graduated from the Bronx High School of Science before receiving a bachelor's degree with a major in Africana studies from Bowdoin College in 2014. After working as a housing counselor and musician, Mamdani entered local New York City politics as a campaign manager for Khader El-Yateem and Ross Barkan. He was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020, defeating five-term incumbent Aravella Simotas in the Democratic primary. Representing Astoria and Long Island City, he was reelected without opposition in 2022 and 2024.

In October 2024, Mamdani announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City in the 2025 election. He campaigned on an affordability-focused platform supporting fare-free city buses, universal public child care, city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, additional affordable housing units, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. He also expressed support for LGBTQ rights, comprehensive public safety reform, and tax increases on corporations and those earning above $1 million annually. He won the Democratic primary in June 2025, defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo in an upset, and was elected mayor in the November general election. Zohran Kwame Mamdani was born on October 18, 1991, in Kampala, Uganda, the only child of postcolonialist academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair.[12][13] He was given his middle name, Kwame, by his father... A timeline of Zohran Mamdani’s rise from little-known lawmaker to mayor-elect of New York City.

By Benjamin Oreskes, Umi Syam and Eden Weingart It was not too long ago that Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani was a backbench state legislator running a long-shot bid for mayor of New York City. But with each passing month, his campaign gained momentum, amassing a huge army of volunteers, maxing out on donations and rising in the polls until he won the Democratic primary in June. Now Mr. Mamdani has been elected as the city’s 111th mayor. A comprehensive timeline of his rise shows how even the smallest of successes set the stage for what followed and laid the groundwork for Mr.

Mamdani to become New York City’s youngest chief executive in more than a century. Cruising to re-election in the State Assembly, Mr. Mamdani began meeting during the summer of 2024 over cups of chai with political allies, labor leaders and members of the news media to discuss a run for mayor. The federal indictment in September of Mayor Eric Adams, whose popularity had been plummeting, made clear that there would be ample opportunity for progressive challengers. Zohran Mamdani reacts as he walks on stage to speak at a mayoral election night watch party, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York.

(AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani tries to talk to pedestrians while surrounded by reporters in New York, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Zohran Mamdani speaks after winning the mayoral election, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York.

(AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, right, walks off the stage with his mother, Mira Nair, second from right, his wife Rama Duwaji, and father Mahmood Mamdani, after making his acceptance speech at election night watch party,... 4, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani talks with Rita Bellevue as she waits at a bus stop in New York, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025.

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig) The day after the home of Eric Adams’s top fundraiser was raided, the new leaders of the Working Families Party, the coalition of progressive groups and labor unions, sent around invites to a secret... The left could see a way to beat the mayor they hated. They just needed a plan. Gathered in the common room of an apartment building in Long Island City: city comptroller Brad Lander, Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso and state senator Jessica Ramos. Zellnor Myrie, another state senator who ended up running, was invited but didn’t come.

Also sitting there: Zohran Mamdani. They were all surprised to see Mamdani there. “Zohran? Is Zohran thinking of running?” Working Families Party co-chair Ana María Archila, who helped organize the meeting, told CNN as the votes were coming in, recalling the reactions that went around. Find this story in your account’s ‘Saved for Later’ section. This article was featured in New York’s One Great Story newsletter.

Sign up here. There is no equivalent in American history to Zohran Kwame Mamdani becoming, at age 34, the next mayor of New York City. An avowed socialist has never led a city so large, nor has a Muslim — nor, in almost any instance, has someone so young and so unlikely to win as the state assemblyman from... Parallels can be invoked, but none quite fit. In Mamdani’s sudden rise there are echoes of Barack Obama, another man with African roots derided by everyone from Hillary Clinton to John McCain as far too inexperienced, or even feckless, to hold great... But Obama was a sitting senator when he ran for president.

And like Bernie Sanders, Mamdani endured the wrath of a Democratic Establishment that wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Unlike Sanders, of course, he actually won. Now Mamdani, once a quasi-anonymous backbencher in Albany, is on the cusp of becoming a global icon. The international media, as much as the national press, is obsessed with him, and the final days of his campaign were spent under a crush of attention rarely, if ever, witnessed in the local... For Mamdani, there was an unprecedented outpouring of support — the 13,000 who jammed a stadium in Forest Hills to hear him speak, the many thousands more who streamed into the streets to knock... Andrew Cuomo and an assortment of outside PACs spent millions of dollars against him, plastering his face with the term jihad and blasting him, again and again, as a radical and outsider who not...

Cuomo laughed when a radio host suggested the pro-Palestine Mamdani would cheer on another 9/11, and he later told a Fox host that his top rival “doesn’t understand the New York culture, the New... The defeat of Cuomo, as much as the triumph of Mamdani, marks a decisive new era in New York politics. For the first time in the modern age, a younger generation has fully repudiated its elders; Mamdani grew his vote share with older Democrats, but it was those under the age of 40 —... And it was the Democratic Party elites who fell hardest, the bevy of politicians and interest groups who initially resisted Mamdani and spent many months not taking him seriously. NEW YORK − Some point to his viral social media clips. Others cite his Obama-esque profile, giving young voters something to believe in.

Maybe it’s just his dimples. Zohran Mamdani shocked the political and business establishment by winning the Nov. 4 New York City mayoral election as a democratic socialist, leading many to wonder how it happened. In interviews with allies, strategists and observers, Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman from Queens, ran a disciplined campaign across all five boroughs, flanked by an unusually large army of volunteers for a municipal race. His winning message offered easily understood ideas for cutting the cost of living in the notoriously expensive city and his universal outreach helped win over skeptical constituencies. It's a dramatic shift from moderate Mayor Eric Adams, who won just four years ago, and a flashback to Adams' progressive predecessor, Bill de Blasio, who ran on addressing economic inequality.

Zohran Mamdani is, quite literally, everywhere. The 34-year-old New York state assemblyman, who in recent months has ascended from relative political anonymity to become the presumptive winner of New York City’s November mayoral race, has already graced the covers of... He’s sparred with newscasters on CNN and Fox News, riffed with Stephen Colbert, and bantered like his life depended on it with the hosts of The View. Mamdani’s ubiquity didn’t start with print pages or broadcast interviews. Much of that conventional media exposure, and Mamdani’s growing celebrity, is a collective byproduct of one single element of his mayoral campaign: a really, really good social strategy. One of Mamdani’s first viral videos, a 2024 supercut of short conversations between the assemblyman and New York–based Trump voters, laid the groundwork for a subsequent mayoral campaign built on clever, conversational clips.

See: Very Cold Mamdani, emerging from a polar plunge in the Atlantic Ocean with a vow to freeze rent on rent-stabilized apartments. See also: Sneakers Mamdani, walking the length of Manhattan to advocate for accessible politicians; Citi Bike Mamdani, responding to a bystander’s howl of “Communist” before pedaling off as cameras roll; or Red Rose Mamdani,... Yes, the #ZaddyZohran TikTok hashtag is nearly as prolific as the candidate who inspires it. But as Mamdani acknowledged during a recent sit-down at his campaign’s spartan Manhattan headquarters, his outsized ubiquity also has its downsides: There’s the ire of President Trump, who has denounced Mamdani as “a 100%... Then there’s the risk of violence against Mamdani or his campaign staff; it’s a concern that increased markedly following the recent assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk, and, for Mamdani, means “I’m never alone... But for someone as everywhere as Mamdani, hunkering down in the secure confines of an office can only last so long.

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