Resurfaced interview of Mamdani with thick Ugandan | Political News

An previous clip of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has been making the rounds on social media, with many customers stating that he sounds very different.

The 34-year-old democratic socialist has been making historical past in New York City since his election in November last 12 months. As effectively as being the youngest mayor in over a century, Mamdani is also the first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian descent, and the first mayor elected from Queens.

Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian mother and father and moved to the U.S. at age seven. However, a clip from a 2016 interview exhibits the younger Mamdani, who was working on a number of group initiatives at the time, talking in an accent noticeably different from his accent in 2026.

In the interview, Mamdani was selling his mom Mira Nair’s movie Queen of Katwe on South Africa’s Kaya 959 radio station. While discussing Ugandan tradition, dance and music, Mamdani appeared to slip into a Ugandan accent.

He told the host that he’s “from Uganda” but also grew up in New York, explaining, “The difference for me is I’m from Uganda, but I also grew up in New York. In New York, you go out, some guys are very hesitant to dance.”

“You know, if they don’t seem to be grinding, they’re just standing. In Kampala, you’ll just not discover that. People are all dancing. Everybody’s dancing, males, girls, and it is unbelievable that approach.”

The clip circulated on social media in August 2026, sparking a new conversation about the mayor’s background and whether or not he was leaning into an accent he may have had as a child that had long disappeared during his New York upbringing.

The Daily Wire shared the footage on X and wrote alongside it, “Nobody does a pretend accent better than a Democrat politician.”

“Isn’t it a tad concerning that his entire accent is different now??” one consumer wrote, while another said, “Not really. This interview was ten years ago. Some people lose their accent when they leave home, some don’t. Maybe he still speaks like this with his family and code switches at work. who knows.”

Another consumer more confidently asserted, “He faked his accent here, there’s interviews of him younger with a full American accent.”

Mamdani, who holds both Ugandan and U.S. citizenship, has come under fixed fire from right-wing critics for his strategy to main the Big Apple.

He most not too long ago clashed with President Trump after he dubbed Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” and indicated that he could be arrested if he got here to New York City, per a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.

Trump responded by insisting that Netanyahu, whom he met with last week in Washington, D.C., wouldn’t face any pushback on his go to to the U.S.