One day in March 2021, Chloe Dulce Lovaso was on her way to a café to have a creative exercise in The Artist’s Way before meeting a friend for lunch.
“Do you like vinyl?” Nasir Seidel Qadri asked as he walked to her in the Union Market district in northeast Washington, trying to hook up Byrdland Records, the nearby vinyl shop where he spent Saturday afternoons spinning funk, soul, dance, disco and house music.
Mr. Kader, 38, works primarily as a Managing Partner at Zeal Capital Partners, the venture capital firm he founded, which focuses on investing in diversified management teams.
She said, “I do.” “Why are you asking?”
He was encouraged by her more than one word response.
“I’m spinning vinyl at 2 p.m.,” he said. “you have to come”.
Then they closed their eyes, took off their covid masks, and smiled.
Ms. Lovozo, 37, a single mother whose son, Mile, 7, was away for the weekend, quickly called her friend. They decided to reconnoitre at Birdland before lunch.
“We just spent 10 minutes digging into the vinyl boxes,” said Ms. Lofoso. When they passed a DJ booth on the way out, Mr. Qadri reached out to hand her his card.
Later, he picks up a margarita to go to Taqueria Las Gemelas, which Mrs. Lovoso and her friend happen to be having lunch with. Then she removed his name from the card, and called him out. They chatted for 15 minutes.
“It was nice to meet you,” she texted right after he left.
At 7:02 the next morning, he responded by asking if she wanted to grab some coffee that morning.
“I don’t want to seem anxious,” she said. “I forced myself to count to 60 several times.”
They met at Le Pain Quotidien later that morning on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Qadri was surprised that they had not met before. “We’re name-dropping friends,” he said. We spent some time in New York. We are both creative in our own right. We’re also college rivals.”
Mr. Kader, who was raised in Atlanta, graduated with a BA in Marketing from Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, and has a BA in Journalism from Howard University.
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Ms. Lofouzo, who was raised in Niger, West Africa, also holds a Master of Professional Studies degree in Public Relations and Corporate Communications from Georgetown. She is now a senior creative producer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and has also written Life, I Swear: Intimate Stories from Black Women about Identity, Healing, and Self-ConfidencePart memoir, part excerpt, published by HarperCollins November 2021.
Their first date lasted 24 hours.
“It was clear we were in tune with each other,” said Mr. Qadri.
They stop for pizza in the downtown area, and when he mentions he didn’t have the right background for his financial segment on CNBC’s 5 AM the next morning, she tells him she’s already rented out her place to production companies. He asked if he could check it out and found it more than appropriate. “Its decor is amazing,” he said.
When she later adjusts his laptop on a tripod, she sits on his lap to get a better angle, which just happens to be the right angle for their first kiss.
“I don’t want crazy love,” she said. “I want peaceful love. I want safe love. I want safe love.”
“Okay,” he said, and ended it with another kiss.
The next afternoon, when Mrs. Lovozo took her son out for ice cream before their weekly swimming lesson at the Navy Yard, they bumped into Mr. Kadri, who lived nearby and had bought some smoothies.
“do you work here?” asked her son, Mr. Qadri. “Maybe we can schedule a game.”
A few hours later, the three had dinner at an Italian restaurant where her son fell asleep on her lap.
“He was an intelligent and ambitious child who reminds me of myself in the same family,” Qadri said.
They start seeing each other every day, and Mr. Qadri hits it big when he appears as Spider-Man at Mile’s fifth birthday in May.
“I knew he was here to stay,” said Ms. Lofoso.
That summer, Mr. Qadri joined her at three weddings, moved in with them in August, and that fall accompanied her on her seven-city book tour. He stood next to her as she talked about past seizures, healing, grief, starting over, and second chances.
In 2022, over Memorial Day weekend, they celebrated Mile’s sixth birthday with a three-day trip to Disney World in Orlando, and on the final day, Mr. Able proposed along the beach.
On July 1, Rev. Dr. A.M. Craig Dunn, Baptist minister and godfather of the groom, in front of 150 guests at Woodend Sanctuary & Mansion in Chevy Chase, Md. , where the couple jumped off the broom, then led everyone in in the rain for the festivities, MC’d by DJ Epik.
“My son began the toast with an epic speech,” said Mrs. Lofoso, who took the groom’s name. The couple takes her surname as a second middle name. Then there’s the other way Mr. Qadri refers to it: “The best three-quarters of my country.”