The Biz: The Mayor’s Royalties; TickPick’s Buy; Bandsintown’s New Deal & More

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani earned more than $1,600 in royalties in 2025 from his years-ago rap career. Mamdani, as is tradition for the mayor in New York, released his tax returns, where the bulk of his income came from his salary as a member of the New York Assembly.

But the man once known as Young Cardamom or Mr. Cardamom also got a little bit of royalty cash, though, as The New York Times noted, more than half of it came from overseas. The $1,643 he earned in 2025 was an increase over past years. In 2024, Mamdani made $1,267 from his time as Cardamom.

According to Billboard, nearly three quarters of U.S. streams from his 2016 joint EP were in the last year. His two most popular songs cracked 200,000 streams in 2025.

“A lot of people say they’re listening,” Mamdani told ABC News. “They’re not listening.”

TickPick Acquires Momento

Ticket marketplaceTickPick has acquired Momento, a mobile app for fans to document and relive live events. The app captures attendance and creates personalized “Momentos,” combining event details with personal stories, photos, videos and context from the experience itself; Since launching in 2023, more than 20 million tickets have been captured as Momentos on the app.

“The value of a live event isn’t defined by the cost to get in the door, it’s driven by the memories fans make while there,” TickPick Co-CEO Brett Goldberg said. “Momento is built around those memories, redefining how they’re captured and how fans interact with them over time. We see it becoming a core product for fans everywhere and extending our relationship with them well beyond the point of purchase.”

By bringing the Momento team into TickPick, the company will invest in the continued development of the product to fuel its adoption across sports, music and live entertainment, accelerating new features and positioning it at the center of the fan experience. 

“Momento has already proven that fans want a centralized place to revisit the events they’ve been to and plan what’s next,” TickPick Co-CEO Chris O’Brien said. “There is a clear opportunity to better recognize and reward real fandom. With TickPick, Momento can fill that gap and deliver it to millions more fans.”

The combination also opens up more data points for artists and their teams, who will be able to better identify and engage with the so-called “superfan,” an emerging distinction in marketing.

Amazon To Use Bandsintown For Listing, Ticket Info

Amazon Music is now integrating Bandsintown’s concert listing and ticketing information into artist profiles, following a similar move by Apple Music.

Venues, festivals and promoters using Bandsintown Pro will also have their listings surfaced within the streamer.

“Artists win when fans can find their concerts just as easily as they find their music,” Bandsintown co-founder and managing partner Fabrice Sergeant said, “Live shows drive artists’ careers because of the remarkable experience they bring to fans and we make promoting them effortless. Being listed once on Bandsintown automatically reaches core audiences everywhere and now powering concert listings on Amazon Music will extend artists’ reach to even more fans worldwide.”