Photo by Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images
Rap Royalties and a Standard Deduction: Inside Mamdani’s (Pretty Boring) Tax Return
Outside of his assemblyman's salary, the mayor reported earnings from streams racked up on songs released under his rap alias, Mr. Cardamom
If you were hoping to catch Mayor Zohran Mamdani claiming some semblance of inherited wealth on his tax return on the other side of his 100th day in office, we’re sorry to disappoint.
According to their publicly released, categorically mundane joint filing, the former Queens assemblyman and his wife, Rama Duwaji, do not appear to have anything anyone could consider generational bags stashed anywhere in or around Gracie Mansion.
The mayoral couple claimed a combined income of about $145,000—$131,296 from his assemblyman salary, $10,010 from Duwaji’s graphic design work, and, perhaps most interestingly on the otherwise pretty boring and cut-and-dry return, $1,643 in rap royalties from Mamdani’s pre-political days as a rapper under the alias, Mr. Cardamom–per The New York Times. The return also indicated Mamdani’s money hasn’t changed much year-over-year, though he did make slightly more in 2025 from the few songs available to stream from a very short-lived rap career, and may very well be the only mayor in the city’s history to collect a check for anything remotely musical.
Mamdani and Duwaji took a standard deduction of $31,500 and are expecting a refund of $7,000 for 2025, which, as far as recent mayors go, is about as uncomplicated and by-the-book as we’ve seen from City Hall in a while, given his predecessor’s crypto curiosities (not to mention, perpetual delays in releasing his returns) and the many billions of dollars worth of property and assets owned and claimed by Mayor Bloomberg.
The son of a Columbia professor and an Oscar-nominated film director, Mamdani has faced nepo accusations since he began a political life. Truthers suspected the 34-year-old first-termer had hidden some generational fortune from the public, but the return suggests otherwise.
As mayor, Mamdani will make $258,750 per year, and if he stays this straight, we don’t expect much creativity in the accounting when it comes to Tax Day in 2027.
