Every few months, the internet finds a new reason to revisit Zohran Mamdani's life before City Hall.
On Wednesday, August 5, an old video of New York City's mayor exploded across social media, drawing millions of views. The footage comes from an interview Mamdani did with South Africa's Kaya FM back in 2016, during the press tour for Disney's Queen of Katwe. In one clip, he talks about and briefly demonstrates dance moves from Uganda and Nigeria. In another, he performs his rap verse from the song #1 Spice, which was featured in the film.
Within hours of resurfacing, the clip had crossed more than four million views. The footage has become the latest online controversy surrounding the mayor, with many questioning whether his accent changes depending on the audience. In the old footage, Mamdani speaks with a pronounced Ugandan accent. How he sounds today, in press conferences and cable news hits, is noticeably different.
Reality TV star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt slammed Mamdani over the video on X. Pratt described him as a "fraud" and accused him of "appropriating African culture." That post drew its own wave of engagement and pushback.
Not everyone agreed. Mamdani lived in South Africa between 1996 and 1999, between the ages of five and seven. His father, Ugandan-Indian scholar Mahmood Mamdani, raised the family between Kampala and the United States. Supporters pointed out that code-switching is natural for someone raised across continents.
The clip has also revived curiosity about the mayor's entertainment career. Before he became a progressive political figure, Mamdani was a foreclosure prevention counselor who moonlit as a rapper, first as Young Cardamom and later as Mr. Cardamom. His entry point was a duo formed with his best friend, Ugandan emcee Abdul Bar Hussein, who performs as HAB.
In 2015, Mamdani officially adopted the Young Cardamom moniker. A year later, the duo released a six-song EP titled Sidda Mukyaalo. In an interview with OkayAfrica, he revealed that the album title is the Luganda translation for "no going back to the village." The pair reportedly rapped in six different languages on the project, paying tribute to Ugandan culture throughout.
That same year, he worked on Queen of Katwe. Mamdani curated and produced the soundtrack for the film, directed by his mother, Mira Nair, earning a nomination for a 2017 Guild of Music Supervisors Award. He also appears as an extra and is credited as third assistant director. During the Kaya FM interview now circulating, he joked about the family connection. "Nepotism and hard work goes a long way," he said, laughing.
His song #1 Spice, produced under the Young Cardamom name with Hussein, was featured in the Disney film and plays as the first track in the movie. By April 2019, under the Mr. Cardamom moniker, Mamdani released Nani, an homage to his grandmother. The video starred legendary actress and food writer Madhur Jaffrey as a sharp-tongued grandmother.
The contrast between then and now is striking. Mamdani's creative outreach helped him connect with younger and immigrant voters, leading to a historic win over political veteran Andrew Cuomo in the 2025 Democratic primary. On New Year's Day 2026, he was sworn in as mayor.
His meteoric rise as a celebrity politician has brought only a modest increase in hip-hop profits: he took home 1,267 in 2024, according to his tax filings. The rap career ended. The royalties trickle on.
Whether the accent clip becomes a lasting political issue or fades like earlier rounds of scrutiny remains to be seen. For now, it sits at the intersection of everything that makes Mamdani unusual: the multicultural upbringing, the film industry past, the SoundCloud bars, and the fact that voters can Google all of it.
"Every brown boy lived on SoundCloud at one point," Mamdani said during a recent appearance on Kutti Gang, a New York comedy show, laughing it off.
Most of them didn't end up running the city.
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