“It’s an Indian ‘I Will Survive’ kind of song,” Ms. Jaffrey said.

For many in the desi diaspora, Ms. Jaffrey is a revered figure, almost single-handedly responsible for introducing the complexities of Indian food to the West, and asserting its place in the pantheon of great world cuisines.

A mutual friend approached Ms. Jaffrey on Mr. Mamdani’s behalf, and she was intrigued. The two met, and he pleaded his case, then proceeded to build the video around her, weaving in clips from her movies and TV cooking shows.

Mr. Mamdani, 27, was born in Kampala, Uganda, and moved to New York at age 7. In his official, buttoned-up life, he counsels homeowners facing foreclosure.

But he has always had an alter ego as a musician. As a junior at the Bronx High School of Science, he ran for class vice president with a rapped platform promising freshly squeezed juices for all. He lost.

Four years ago, he reinvented himself as Young Cardamom, and with his childhood friend Abdul Bar Hussein (a.k.a. HAB) recorded “Kanda (Chap Chap),” a rap about the fatty, greasy splendor of Ugandan-style chapati. (At one point in the video, the flatbread spins on a turntable.)

“#1 Spice,” the duo’s biggest hit, was written for the 2016 movie “Queen of Katwe,” where it is first sung by a child in Uganda selling salt, then blasted as a full-fledged rap over the credits: “Bring the flavor to the fish, bring the flavor to the rice / Who’s the number-one spice?” (The film was directed by Mr. Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, whose work includes the Oscar-nominated “Salaam Bombay!”)

Mr. Mamdani wanted his first solo video as Mr. Cardamom (“Better drop the act that I’m young,” he said) to be “a love letter to desi New York.” So the crew wound its way from an apartment in Parkchester in the eastern Bronx, a neighborhood home to many Bangladeshi immigrants, to Kabab King, a nostalgically dingy 24-hour diner and cabby sanctuary in Jackson Heights.