NYC Mayor Mamdani joins Nas to talk future of hip-hop
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sat down with Nas for a short documentary on hip-hop in New York, premiered exclusively by Billboard on 30 September. The film tracks their conversation about where the music started in the city and where it goes next.
Mamdani said he wants to restore New York to rap capital status. He wants the crown back. He told Billboard the city should remain hip-hop's home as well as its birthplace, and that will only hold if artists who create there can afford to live there.
The main interview was filmed in a park near the Queensbridge Projects in Queens, where Nas was raised. The setting keeps the talk close to the streets that shaped his early life. The rent is part of the story here, not a footnote.
The documentary also recaps Mamdani's visit to the Bronx School of Hip-Hop on the first day of classes earlier in September. The school sits in the Claremont section of the Bronx. Its teaching programme is organised around hip-hop, using the music and its culture as a base for lessons.
Hip-hop was founded in the Bronx in 1973. Rapper Fat Joe makes a cameo appearance in the clip.
For fans, the extra layer is Mamdani's own past on the mic. He has form.
He once rapped under the alias Mr. Cardamom, and performed at a festival in Uganda, according to Reuters. That short-lived run as a multilingual rapper still pays him. Tax filings show he took home $1,643 in music royalties in the most recent reported year and $1,267 in 2024, according to the Associated Press. Royalties are payments made when recorded music is sold, streamed or otherwise used.
Mamdani, whose full name is Zohran Kwame Mamdani, is the 112th mayor of New York City, according to the City of New York. He was sworn in on 1 January 2026. Before that he represented State Assembly District 36, covering Astoria, Ditmars-Steinway and Astoria Heights.
He defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in June's Democratic mayoral primary. The Billboard film puts his cultural pitch in that political context: keep the birthplace affordable enough to remain a home.
