{"id":184532,"date":"2026-04-03T15:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184532\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:19:11","slug":"cardi-b-will-judge-zohran-mamdanis-nyc-2-k-childcare-jingle-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184532\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardi B Will Judge Zohran Mamdani’s NYC 2-K Childcare Jingle Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDo you have the musical acumen and passion for toddler education<\/a> to impress both Zohran Mamdani<\/a> and Cardi B<\/a>? The New York City<\/a> mayor announced on Friday that Cardi B would judge a citywide competition of jingles, officially New York\u2019s Best Childcare Jingle, written to promote Mamdani\u2019s free childcare initiative for the Big Apple\u2019s two-year-olds, which the administration is calling 2-K, similar to pre-K and 3-K for three-year-olds.<\/p>\n

\n\tNew Yorkers who think they have what it takes can submit a 15- or 30-second jingle to a special page of the NYC.gov website<\/a>, which they must also post to their social media with the tags #NYC2KJingle and @nycmayor, to tell the world in a catchy and memorable way that the city will be offering free 2-K education in select neighborhoods in the fall. Once all the submissions are in on April 17, Cardi B will select five finalists, and New Yorkers will ultimately pick the winner.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs Cardi B says: \u2018I can get \u2019em both. I don\u2019t wanna choose,’\u201d Mamdani said in a statement. \u201cWith universal childcare, New Yorkers won\u2019t have to. For too long, families have been forced to choose between affordable care and staying in the city they love. Now, they can have both \u2014 free care in the greatest city in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a video promoting the contest, Mamdani asks Cardi B what she thinks of free childcare. \u201cI feel like free childcare is very important,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes, us women, we can\u2019t really go forward because we don\u2019t have nobody to help us take care of our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe initial neighborhoods where 2-K will be available (the Bronx\u2019s Fordham, Manhattan\u2019s Washington Heights, Brooklyn\u2019s Canarsie, and Southeast Queens) have special connections to Cardi B, who was born in the Bronx and has Dominican and Caribbean roots like many of the people who live there. The initial launch will be open to 2,000 children. The rollout foreshadows Mamdani\u2019s plan for universal childcare, one of the platforms he campaigned on during the election. The program will be available to New Yorkers regardless of\u00a0ZIP\u00a0code,\u00a0income,\u00a0or immigration status.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tEnrollment for 2-K will run from June 2 to June 26. Families will find out if their children made placement in August, and the school term begins in September.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe launch of 2-K marks an important milestone for early childhood education in New York City,\u201d the city\u2019s schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, said in a statement. \u201cExpanding access to early care and learning for two-year-olds helps children build strong foundations for language, social development, and learning, while supporting families during an important stage of their child\u2019s development. This is an important step as we continue building a stronger, more connected birth-to-five early childhood system for New York City families.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you have the musical acumen and passion for toddler education to impress both Zohran Mamdani and Cardi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[846,67,9,24,11,10,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-184532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-cardi-b","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184532","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=184532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}