On Thursday (April 16), New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly released his joint tax return filed with his wife, Rama Duwaji. The details of the return revealed one surprising entry – royalties stemming from his secondary career as a rapper just a few years ago.
According to the 2025 return, Mamdani and Duwaji reported a total income of $145,000 with the bulk of that income stemming from Mamdani’s salary as a state assemblyman of $131,296. Duwaji reported an income of $10,010 from her profession as a graphic designer, which would wind up being $8,860 after deductions.
Mamdani’s royalties from his music totaled $1,643. More than half of those earnings were made from overseas. He rapped under the name Mr. Cardamom while he was working as a foreclosure prevention counselor, after debuting as Young Cardamom back as a student at the Bronx High School of Science. He even joked about being a “B-list rapper” in a post on X, formerly Twitter back in 2019.
