Mysonne Joins Zohran Mamdani As A Criminal Justice Adviser

Mysonne Linen is officially joining Zohran Mamdani’s transition team as an adviser on the criminal justice system. Hip-hop fans may know him as a rapper from The Bronx who a jury convicted of armed robbery in 1999. He received a 14-year sentence in prison and got out on July 5, 2006, according to The New York Post. After getting out from behind bars, Mysonne co-founded the organization Until Freedom, which works to combat racial injustice.

“We are proud that Until Freedom leaders have been chosen to serve on Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team on committees for public safety and criminal justice respectively,” the organization said in a recent statement. “This is a testament to our decades of work advocating on behalf of Black and Brown communities and our expertise in gun violence prevention, legislative advocacy and criminal justice reform. We are building something different.”

When Will Zohran Mamdani Take Office As NYC Mayor?

Zohran Mamdani will officially become the Mayor of New York City on January 1, 2026, following his victory in the 2025 election over Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa. He ran on a platform focused on affordability, supporting fare-free city buses, universal public child care, city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, and more. In addition to Mysonne Linen, Mamdani's transition team features Former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan as well as Grace Bonilla, Melanie Hartzog, Maria Torres-Springer, and more.

In the wake of his victory, Mamdani met with President Donald Trump at the White House, reiterating that he still believes he is a “fascist” and a “despot,” despite having a productive conversation. Reflecting on the meeting during an appearance on Meet the Press afterward, Mamdani added, as caught by NBC News: “That’s something I’ve said in the past and I say today. And I think what I appreciated about the conversation that I had with the president was that we were not shy about the places of disagreement, about the politics that has brought us to this moment, and we also wanted to focus on what it could look like to deliver on a shared analysis of an affordability crisis for New Yorkers.”