The young man hadn’t considered that he could reach millions when he grabbed the microphone on a Manhattan corner and roared:
My mayor Muslim
My bagel’s Jewish
My Christian Dior
Knicks in four
The 15-second clip — uploaded to TikTok after the New York Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs last week in Game 1 of the NBA Finals — exploded on the internet. Knicks fans reposted it. People across the country and overseas reposted it. People who say they don’t even watch basketball reposted it.
Knowing what “Knicks in four” means didn’t seem to matter.
MD Hossain, 23, who moved from Bangladesh to Jamaica, Queens when he was a baby, said he was buzzing with joy and just started riffing.
“I grew up with Jews, Muslims, Haitians, Pakistanis, Bengalis…” he said. “I just had to bring everyone together.”
There was something special about it, said those who shared it — something electric and pure and maybe even healing. Hossain‘s four impromptu lines blazed across social media, rippled through group chats and erupted as a chant at watch parties and on street corners. Yes, it captured the exuberance of a city on the cusp of possibly winning a basketball championship for the first time in 53 years, but it also spread a message of unity at a time when folks far beyond New York are feeling divided.
Knicks in 4 #nba #nbafinals #nbaplayoffs #knicks #newyorkknicks
“It’s what we’re all hungry for — a way to come together,” said Shekar Krishnan, a city council member in Queens.
“My mayor Muslim, my bagel’s Jewish” was so catchy, Krishnan recited it on stage Saturday at the Governors Ball Music Festival. The crowd lost it. The rhyme resonated, he thought, because people of all backgrounds are tired of feeling pitted against each other. And because, well…
“That guy dropped bars,” he said.
Hossain had stumbled into the camera of Kalshi, an online prediction market that has been filming man-on-the-street videos outside Madison Square Garden. (He isn’t employed by Kalshi, a spokesperson said, and the encounter happened by chance.) Commenters on the original video, which surpassed 6.9 million views, called it poetry, an absolute banger, “the type of thing that could spark world peace.”
His message touched Rachel Timoner, the senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
“You can root for the Knicks eating a bagel,” she said, “or with food from the halal cart.’
Eumie Michelle Shin, a 23-year-old content creator in Cincinnati, said his words inspired her to reconsider her life plans. She’d been mulling a move to the nation’s capital. Now she thought: Why not New York? Hearing a message of togetherness, however goofy, boosted her mood.
“At a politically turbulent time like this,” she said, “that was such a glowing moment.”
Anjali Bhatt, a 29-year-old fellow at a think tank in Washington, D.C., felt the same way. The viral words reminded her of a “Coexist” bumper sticker.
“Every single part of ‘my mayor muslim, my bagels jewish, my christian dior, knicks in four’ is not applicable to me,” she posted on X, “but that hasn’t stopped me from saying it out loud fifteen times today.”
For Mandeep Singh, a 33-year-old startup employee in Queens, the rhymes morphed into a group chat ritual. Someone will type, “My mayor Muslim.” Someone will respond, “My bagel’s Jewish.”
“Even these silly little phrases, I think, are healing,” he said.
Bob Spiegel, a 64-year-old Knicks season ticket holder, embraced most of the chant gaining steam at some watch parties his company catered.
The owner of Pinch Food Design was proud of his Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani. As a Jewish food entrepreneur, meanwhile, he made a mean mini bagel. “My Christian Dior” struck him as a nod to being in the fashion capital of the world.
But “Knicks in four” gave him pause.
“We have been burned so many times,” he said.
The kumbaya energy was great and all, he stressed, but the younger generation should have more patience. In a best-of-seven playoff series, why create pressure to rush victory in the first four games?
“Let’s just make this moment last,” he said.
A fresh graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, Hossain doesn’t consider himself a poet. He’s looking for a job in finance.
One of his first loves, however, was freestyling. He used to practice rapping in high school with his friends. The hip-hop artist Pop Smoke inspired that Christian Dior line.
Since the 15 seconds that catapulted him to social media fame, childhood pals have been reaching out to congratulate him. The words that moved him most, though, came from his mom, an immigrant who worked hard to give him the confidence to speak his mind.
“She was like, ‘the message you’re sending is really beautiful,” he said.
Razzan Nakhlawi contributed to this report.
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