Kareem Rahma never had a plan. The 38-year-old entertainer—who managed to transform the art of interviewing in his Internet shows SubwayTakes and Keep the Meter Running (cover star Ramy Youssef is currently developing the latter into a TV series)—claims to not have one, even now. And I have to say, I believe him.
For starters, Kareem’s got charm. The late, great Mike Nichols once described being charming as “giving away a vital part of yourself which you can absolutely part with.” In the hour I spent with Kareem in a Midtown hotel, I saw this illustrated in real time. Nothing was off-limits. He generously answered all of my questions about his past divorce (sans an “off-the-record” groan), regaled me with tales from his “midlife crisis,” (which he quickly rechristened his “midlife enlightenment period”), and entertained a hearty amount of shit-talking (I started it). Yet when I left, I had the sense that what I perceived as a vulnerable exchange was actually no sweat off his back.
The Monday I sat down with Kareem, he had already interviewed 16 people (Cate Blanchett among them) for SubwayTakes, sifted through the footage (he also produces the show), and taken several meetings (one of which dealt with the release of his latest comedy special), all before going home to spend time with his infant daughter and wife, Karina Muslimova, with whom he had recently starred in a Gap campaign.
I asked Kareem to show me his schedule for the week, but it was so jam-packed I had to make him translate it for me out loud. We only made it through one day before I noticed his phone exploding. (Forty-one unread texts from 16 different people in under 20 minutes—totally normal for him.) How did all this come about for a man without a plan?
Kareem grew up with no real dream. Zero dreams. “I mean, I just grew up in a suburb,” he says, shrugging. That suburb was Mendota Heights, outside Minnesota’s Twin Cities; he describes his adolescence as “very pleasant, on a cul-de-sac. There wasn’t much art or culture, so I think people’s aspirations were very limited. I wasn’t really into that.” After high school, Kareem went to the University of Minnesota as part of a (now-defunct) program he lovingly described as “taking aimless folks who almost didn’t get into college and bringing them together to, like, take algebra again.” He chose to major in journalism because “it was fun and easy.”
At 25, he moved to New York and settled into a media career, spending his first eight years doing audience development and marketing at the likes of Vice and The New York Times before launching his own production company. Things, as they say in Minnesota, snowballed from there.
Kareem has never booked anyone for SubwayTakes. This means that, since he posted the series' first episode on Instagram in 2023, he’s never reached out to any of the celebrities who have been on the show—they all made contact first (Jane Goodall, John C. Reilly, Lil Nas X, FKA Twigs, and Blanchett, to name a few). He made a rule for himself: Release 100 episodes before even considering interviewing a famous person. “I hate when people are like, ‘Who’s the talent attached?’ At that stage, I was not ‘talent.’ I later realized, ‘This show will make me the talent.’ And so I wouldn’t let anyone [famous] come on the show for those first 100 episodes, even though people were emailing.”
I ask Kareem how he copes with meeting his heroes, but he tells me he hasn’t met enough of them. “A lot of it is driven just by the desire to surprise myself, which is why there are so many different projects and so many different mediums,” he says, pointing to his band, Tiny Gun, as one of his more absurd ventures. “Like, why do I have a rock and roll band? Literally, why? Because, first, I like it and I think it’s fun, and second, I’m like, Holy shit, I can make music. That’s pretty cool. It’s a surprise to me as much as anyone else.”
I guess my point, if those even mean anything anymore, is this: Kareem is the talent. He has been all along. So, duh, Kareem has plans. The rest of us just haven’t figured out what to do with them yet.
THE CULT100 QUESTIONNAIRE
WHAT KEEPS YOU UP AT NIGHT?
Most of the time, it’s acid reflux.
WHAT'S SOMETHING PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT YOU?
People tend to assume I’m unhinged and hyperactive. The truth is, I’m pretty mellow and low-key. When my wife and I first met, she mentioned how surprised she was that I’m actually so calm. I don’t know, man. I’m perceived one way but feel another.
IF YOU COULD ATTRIBUTE YOUR SUCCESS TO A SINGLE QUALITY OF YOURS, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
What’s the worst that could happen?
ARE PEOPLE EVER STARSTRUCK BY YOU?
Sometimes people ask for selfies or dap me up in passing. I love a good dap.
WHO DO YOU CALL THE MOST?
I call my friend Blake a lot. It’s kind of like a game? I don’t know how to explain it. We sort of just chit-chat and shoot the shit, kind of like what I imagine cab drivers do all day. We literally call each other multiple times a day.
Photography Assistance by Henry Dolan
Location: The Fifth Avenue Hotel
