{"id":23168,"date":"2025-10-30T21:27:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T21:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/23168\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T21:27:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T21:27:23","slug":"zohran-mamdani-doesnt-recognize-this-famous-new-yorker-in-quiz-about-famous-gotham-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/23168\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani doesn\u2019t recognize this famous New Yorker in quiz about famous Gotham songs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He\u2019s not in a \u201cNew York State of Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zohran Mamdani didn\u2019t recognize <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/07\/23\/entertainment\/billy-joel-surprises-nyc-pedicab-driver-and-passenger-playing-new-york-state-of-mind-on-street\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Billy Joel\u2019s beloved 1976 rock tribute<\/a> to the Big Apple during a quiz about famous New York City tunes.<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/10\/30\/us-news\/zohran-mamdani-has-varying-leads-ahead-of-nyc-mayoral-race\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mayoral race front-runner<\/a> was asked by Jack Coyne of the Track Star podcast to listen to songs by legendary New York musicians \u2014 from Frank Sinatra to <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/09\/10\/beastie-boys-celebrate-renamed-nyc-intersection\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Beastie Boys<\/a>\u2014 and identify them during a playful segment<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DQb6WfkEXuk\/?igsh=dmRrcHdlNzloZnY3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> posted on Instagram Thursday.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.5589391;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37530542\" width=\"330\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2025-mamdani-able-identify-song-114485726.jpg\" alt=\"Mamdani \" class=\"wp-image-37530542\"  \/>Mamdani  was stumped by Billy Joel\u2019s hit \u201cNew York State of Mind\u201d durning a quiz about famous Big Apple songs. Instagram\/Trackstar Show<\/p>\n<p>Mamdani correctly named hits by Jay-Z, The Strokes, Mobb Deep and others \u2014 but when the opening piano number in Billy Joel\u2019s hit \u201cNew York State of Mind\u201d began, he looked stumped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, as a politician, I think it\u2019s important to be honest\u2026\u201d Mamdani said, explaining he doesn\u2019t recognize the song.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlays the piano? He\u2019s from Long Island?\u201d Coyne tries to hint, to no avail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not on your go-to playlist?\u201d Coyne asks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGotta be honest,\u00a0 no,\u201d Mamdani responds.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.53293413;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37530539\" width=\"904\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/billy-joel-performs-onstage-last-114485820.jpg\" alt=\"Mamdani couldn't identify the song &quot;New York State of Mind&quot; by Billy Joel.\" class=\"wp-image-37530539\"  \/>The 33-year-old mayoral race frontrunner was asked by Jack Coyne of the Track Star podcast to listen to songs by legendary Big Apple-based musicians \u2014 from Frank Sinatra to The Beastie Boys\u2014 and identify them during a playful segment posted on Instagram Thursday. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>During the segment, Mamdani, who has made hip hop music under the rap name Mr. Cardamom, also correctly identified a song by himself <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DZ1OblYm5YY\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">titled \u201c#1 Spice\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m still holding out hope there is a comeback,\u201d Coyne says of Mamdani\u2019s musical career.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re gonna be holding for a while,\u201d Mamdani replies.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s not in a \u201cNew York State of Mind.\u201d Zohran Mamdani didn\u2019t recognize Billy Joel\u2019s beloved 1976 rock&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15239,5184,15240,57,15241,9,24,55,54,56,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-23168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-beastie-boys","9":"tag-billy-joel","10":"tag-jay-z","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-musicians","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-city-news","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-us-news","19":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168","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=23168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}