New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani shared his 2025 joint tax return for transparency’s sake on Thursday, April 16th. As reported by The New York Times, the one-time rapper is still making some passive income from his music career, reporting $1,643 in royalties earned last year.
There’s no doubt that Mamdani’s mayoral run caused a renewed interest in the music he recorded under the names Young Cardamom and Mr. Cardamom. Billboard reports that 74% of US streams for Sidda Mukyallo, his joint 2016 EP with HAB (Abdul Bar Hussein), were from last year, when it raked in 58,000 on-demand streams. His most popular songs, the HAB collab “#1 Spice” and 2019’s “Nani,” garnered a respective 219,000 and 243,000 on-demand streams in 2025.
However, Mamdani still had recent success even before his mayoral candidacy. He reported another $1,267 in music royalties in 2024, when he was a member of the New York State Assembly.
