A decade-old radio interview in which New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears to adopt a Ugandan accent while promoting a Disney film has resurfaced online, drawing sharp conservative criticism and fresh questions about his authenticity.
The clip, recorded in 2016 on South Africa's Kaya 959 radio station, shows Mamdani discussing Ugandan culture and dance while promoting Queen of Katwe, a Disney film directed by his mother, Mira Nair. In the interview, Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, raised in South Africa, and moved to New York City at age seven, spoke in what critics now describe as a put-on Ugandan accent that bears little resemblance to his typical public speaking voice as a New York politician. The clip went viral again Wednesday, having already resurfaced once before last year.
Mamdani, a dual U.S.-Ugandan citizen, told the South African radio host that he straddled two worlds, and the contrast between them was apparently on display in his delivery.
In the interview, Mamdani said:
"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."
He went on to compare the two cultures:
"You know, if they're not grinding, they're just standing. In Kampala, you will just not find that. People are all dancing. Everybody's dancing, men, women and it's fantastic that way."
The mayor's office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Mamdani served as music supervisor and third assistant director on Queen of Katwe, a film about a Ugandan chess prodigy, and also appeared in a brief on-screen cameo. The film was directed by his mother, and Mamdani was candid about how he got the gig. During the same Kaya FM interview, the Washington Free Beacon reported, Mamdani said: "I actually created a playlist for Mira, who also happens to be my mother, you know, nepotism and hard work goes a long way."
That admission sits awkwardly beside a political career built on attacking corporate power and privilege. The Free Beacon also flagged a separate, earlier interview in which Mamdani described himself as a social chameleon: "I know what someone wants to hear to laugh. I know what someone wants to hear to feel whatever it might be... You just give people exactly what they want."
For a mayor already facing questions about misrepresenting his role in policy outcomes, that quote landed like a confession.
The resurfaced clip drew a wave of pointed criticism from conservative commentators on X. Benny Johnson, host of The Benny Show, posted: "UNEARTHED: Zohran Mamdani does an obviously fake Ugandan accent while promoting a Disney movie based in Africa. How many Democrats have been caught using fake accents at this point? They're all frauds."
Spencer Pratt, the former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, was blunter. He called Mamdani a "theater kid commie" who was "running another fake accent and appropriating African culture," adding: "Communists are all frauds. EVERY single one."
The Daily Wire kept it short: "Nobody does a fake accent better than a Democrat politician."
Tara Bull, a conservative commentator and Twitter Spaces host, drew a comparison to another Democratic figure: "Anyone else notice Mamdani's accent change? He must've studied at Obama University." Conservative Brief, a right-wing news site, piled on with similar language, calling it "another one" in a pattern of Democrats and fake accents.
The criticism was not limited to media figures. Sammy Antar, the former Crazy Eddie CFO and convicted fraudster turned white-collar-crime commentator, raised a pointed question about consistency:
"Has Zohran Mamdani ever explained when adopting another culture's accent is 'cultural appropriation' and when it is 'authenticity'? He had plenty to say about everyone else's privilege at Bowdoin."
Kevin Smith, host of Loud Majority Live, aimed at the corporate angle: "When did Disney start to suck? When they hired the director's son who had a fake Ugandan accent. He didn't mind 'big corporations' when they were signing his checks."
The accent controversy is the latest in a string of unflattering episodes for the New York City mayor. The same 2016 clip drew scrutiny when it first resurfaced last year, suggesting Mamdani has been unable to put the footage behind him despite its age.
Mamdani lived in South Africa only between roughly ages five and seven before his family moved to New York, yet the Free Beacon noted that his speech in the Kaya FM interview carried inflections that critics found inconsistent with someone who left the continent as a young child. Whether those speech patterns reflect genuine code-switching, common among people raised across multiple cultures, or a calculated performance is the question critics are pressing. Mamdani's own words about knowing "what someone wants to hear" have made the charitable reading harder to sustain.
Mamdani has also faced public rejection on other fronts. A Staten Island crowd booed him off stage at an NYPD celebration, and a Gold Star family blocked him from speaking at a fallen soldier's funeral in Queens, episodes that suggest his credibility problems extend well beyond social media.
His mother, director Mira Nair, once described Mamdani as "not an American at all" in a 2013 interview, a characterization that now reads as part of a broader identity narrative that shifts depending on the audience. A photo caption from November 2025 placed Nair at a canvass launch in New York City, underscoring the family's deep involvement in Mamdani's political rise.
Meanwhile, disputes over what Mamdani says privately versus publicly continue to dog his administration, with his own staff contradicting outside accounts of his conduct.
Mamdani also previously pursued a rap career under the stage names "Young Cardamom" and "Mr. Cardamom", yet another persona in a résumé that critics argue reveals a politician more comfortable performing than governing.
Fox News Digital reached out to the mayor's office for comment on the resurfaced clip. No response was included in reporting as of Wednesday. A photo caption placed Mamdani at Police Headquarters in New York on August 7, holding a security briefing ahead of the Dominican Day Parade, official business that carried on while the internet dissected his decade-old radio appearance.
The clip's persistence is itself telling. It first surfaced last year, and now it has gone viral again, each time drawing fresh attention to the gap between the accent Mamdani used on a South African radio station and the voice New Yorkers hear from their mayor. His own admission, that he knows "what someone wants to hear" and gives "people exactly what they want", is the kind of line that sticks, because it answers the question critics keep asking.
Voters can forgive a lot. But they tend to remember when a politician told them, in his own words, that the whole thing is a performance.
