NYC Mayor Mamdani teams up with Cardi B to announce 2-K applications, launches jingle contest

Cayla Bamberger, New York Daily News on Apr 3, 2026

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NEW YORK — With applications for Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s free child care program for 2-year-olds opening in June, the social media-friendly mayor announced Friday he is turning to Bronx-born rapper Cardi B to help promote it.

Parents will have from June 2 to June 26 to apply for the first 2,000 seats of 2-K in five local school districts in Upper Manhattan, the northern section of the Bronx, parts of Central Brooklyn, and Southeast Queens. Offers are expected to be released in August.

“As Cardi B says: ‘I can get ’em both. I don’t wanna choose,'” Mamdani said in a statement, quoting the debut single, “Bodak Yellow,” that made her a household name.

“For too long, families have been forced to choose between affordable care and staying in the city they love. Now, they can have both — free care in the greatest city in the world.”

To announce the enrollment period, Mamdani released a short-form video on social media with Cardi B launching a 2-K jingle competition, where people can write an original 15 to 30-second ditty urging parents to apply.

A zealous use of viral videos helped catapult Mamdani from a back-of-the-pack, virtually unknown Queens assemblyman, to the winner of last year’s election. Friday’s post was the latest example of how he is using social media to help promote universal child care and to govern more broadly.

For the 2-K jingle competition, a panel of judges, including Cardi B, will review submissions, before voting opens up to the general public, according to a news release. The winning jingle will become the “official 2-K theme” and play on the radio.

“We had a question for you,” Mamdani asks Cardi B in the video. “We’re gonna have a competition to create a jingle. New Yorkers are gonna submit to their best jingle. And we wanted to know you would help judge that competition?”

“Oh, I will judge it for sure,” responds Cardi B, a frequent progressive voice in American politics. The rapper appeared in a 2020 presidential campaign video for Sen. Bernie Sanders, a key ally of Mamdani’s.

Tapping the entertainer’s star power hasn’t always gone well for city officials, though. Then-NYPD Chief of Training Juanita Holmes in 2023 was bounced from her job after inviting Cardi B to a NYPD academy event where she talked and danced with young girls as part of her court-ordered community service for her role in a Queens strip club assault in 2018.

Before teaming up with Cardi B, Mamdani collaborated with YouTube personality Ms. Rachel to publicize free preschool. And on Tuesday, the mayor rescinded a TikTok ban for city agencies put in place by his predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams, as first reported by Politico.

He’s also experimented with other ways of gamifying city government like the jingle competition, including a March Madness-style bracket contest, in which more than 11,600 city residents voted for projects to be personally fixed by Mamdani in their neighborhood. (The non-winning projects will also be fixed by other city workers.)

2-K is launching in school districts 6, 10, 18, 23 and 27, with the goal of expanding citywide by the end of Mamdani’s first term. Gov. Kathy Hochul earmarked $73 million and $425 million for 2-K in its first and second years, when the program is set to grow to 12,000 kids for the 2027-28 school year.

The deadline to submit a 2-K jingle is April 17.

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