Bengaluru: It took New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani less than a minute into his interview with Complex to mention the cost of living crisis. It’s business as usual for the mayor whose gameplan centres on making New York affordable—even when the questions turn to sneakers and dating apps.
Asked who he’d invite to a hypothetical dinner party at Gracie Mansion, the Mayor’s residence, Mamdani picked Fiorello La Guardia, calling him “the greatest mayor in our city’s history,” and then added 50 Cent—”so we could have a conversation around tax policy.” 50 Cent has earlier criticised Mamdani’s plan to tax the wealthy.
Asked what his parents taught him about love, he said. “To give all of yourself to it [love].”
“My mother fell in love with my father in a country and in a continent that she’d never been to before.”
His mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, met his father, anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani, while researching her 1991 film Mississippi Masala, starring Denzel Washington.
He said he felt something similar meeting his own wife. He told host Jillian Superstar that he’d fallen for illustrator Rama Duwaji’s photo on Hinge before she’d even matched back. “I had to kind of just hold it in for a little bit because I think I was in love from the moment I saw her photo,” he said. Adding that he took a screenshot of it.
Asked about his opening message, he said Duwaji had mentioned loving creme brulee on her profile. “I was just like, where should we go?” he said, then admitted he was making it sound smoother than it was. “My hands were shaking.”
The two deleted their dating profiles only after a few dates. “We talked about that after a few dates, and that’s when I made that decision as well,” he said.
Superstar pivoted it back to affordability. She said a standard dinner-drinks-and-movie date in New York now runs $150 to $250, often before you’ve even worked out if the date is worth a second one.
Mamdani agreed there was too much judgment aimed at young people for not dating or socialising more, without acknowledging what it costs to do so. On the affordability push, he plugged a city dining initiative offering summer deals at more than 488 restaurants.
“It’s so expensive to live in this city, it’s even more expensive to love in this city,” he said.
Also read: American media doesn’t know what to do with Rama Duwaji. She keeps escaping their boxes
Mamdani for President?
The rest of the interview ranged across Mamdani’s love for New York, sneakers and rap.
He recalled losing a vice-presidential race in high school. His campaign video was rapped. He still remembered the opening bars: “My name is Zohran and I’m running for vice president. I need all your votes, so please don’t be hesitant.”
He said the video opened with him doing push-ups in a parking lot, and that his AP US History teacher wasn’t impressed. “I think he was being an appropriate hater,” Mamdani laughed.
He also talked about buying his first pair of Nike Dunks for $90 on the Lower East Side. He said he once played soccer barefoot to avoid creasing them: “I ended up burning through my socks and my soles.”
Asked about rapper ASAP Rocky’s claim that he could beat him in a rap battle, Mamdani laughed and agreed: “Yes. He would wash me.”
He was once again asked about running for president—he can’t, as a naturalised citizen—Mamdani sidestepped. “I thankfully never have to worry about that,” he said. “I think it’s hard to think of a better job than this.” Pressed on why, he kept it simple: “You wake up in New York City, you go to sleep in New York City. The whole day is in New York City. What more could you want?”
He closed on a more serious note, reflecting on why young people often engage more with culture than with politics. He said there’s a tendency among politicians to write off young people as not worth their time, without asking why young people feel disconnected in the first place. “They see more of themselves in that culture,” he said. “They don’t see themselves in this politics.”