{"id":166944,"date":"2026-03-18T04:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/166944\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T04:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:19:09","slug":"nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani-names-jay-z-and-a-few-surprises-in-his-top-5-rappers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/166944\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Names Jay-Z and a Few Surprises in His Top 5 Rappers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever you get into a debate about the greatest of all time in any category, discussions can get rather contentious, and rap music is no different. Music<\/a> fans have been debating for years the greatest rappers of all time, and recently installed mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, just announced his top five. While the leader of the Big Apple had usual suspects like Jay-Z and Biggie Smalls, you may be shocked to learn that his list is not all New York rappers, and he left off big names from the list. Will his top five list land him in trouble with hip hop aficionados?<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Top 5 Rappers Doesn\u2019t Include 2Pac, Drake, or Eminem\"Drake(Prince Williams&sol;Wireimage)<\/p>\n

During a recent interview, Mamdani was asked point-blank, \u201cTop five rappers? And go.\u201d With a smile on his face, he takes a minute to digest the question and replies:<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I got to say, in no particular order, I got to put in Nas. As someone who used to represent Queenbridge Houses, largest public housing development in North America. I also have to say, when I was growing up for me, Lupe Fiasco. He\u2019s one of my top rappers. I also have a real soft spot for Common. I also have to put in Jay-Z. And I think, as New York City, we have to put in Biggie.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, in a shocker, although Mamdani did name rappers Jay-Z, Nas, and Biggie to his top 5 rappers of all time, he didn\u2019t make his list exclusively of New Yorkers. Both Common and Lupe Fiasco are proud representatives of Chicago, Illinois.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s also a bit surprising is that Mamdani doesn\u2019t include 2Pac or Eminem<\/a>, who are both widely regarded as legendary hip hop artists. Along those lines, Mamdani also omitted heavy hitters like Drake<\/a>, Kendrick Lamar<\/a>, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West<\/a>. All six of these rappers appear in some form or fashion on many music lovers’ lists of top rappers.\u00a0Check out Mamdani’s full answer in the video below:<\/p>\n

Social Media Reacts to Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Top 5 Rappers List<\/p>\n

Given that these types of conversations tend to be contentious, it\u2019s not hard to believe people on social media had plenty to say about Mamdani\u2019s list. Check out a few of the comments found on X (formerly Twitter).<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Men’s Journal<\/a> on Mar 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whenever you get into a debate about the greatest of all time in any category, discussions can get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21895,56196,9,24,56,63,65,64,68446,82],"class_list":["post-166944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-biggie-smalls","tag-lupe-fiasco","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-top-rappers","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}