![]() ![]() Once he got settled in Cleveland he would be more than happy to meet up and talk. When we talked, he was in the process of moving from Charlotte, North Carolina back to his hometown of Cleveland. Weeks passed until one afternoon I got a call from a random North Carolina phone number. ![]() One eventually wrote me back and asked for my phone number, telling me that they’d make sure it got to Wadud. Reading through the comments I found a few people referring to Wadud as “Uncle Ron.” I sent them direct messages and asked if there’s any way they could put me in touch with them. It turned out that Raheem Devaughn re-posted the vintage photos of his father to his own Instagram account. Why had he stopped playing seemingly all of a sudden in the early to mid-90s? Why did his closest musical associates not have any idea where he was or how he was doing? But, most of all, we just really wanted to meet him and express our deep gratitude for his music. There were still so many mysteries we wanted to know about Wadud. The latter never materialized but I was really happy to hear that he was still alive. He confirmed his dad was alive and well, and he offered to help put me in touch with Wadud. On two occasions we had lengthy exchanges about his father. I was surprised how quickly he responded to me. In an effort to track him down and figure out if there was truth to these rumors, I posted a couple of vintage photos of Abdul Wadud to social media and tagged his son, the R&B singer Raheem DeVaughn. Even some of his former musical collaborators couldn’t confirm whether he was alive or dead. But, no obituary could be found and no one could seem to find out if the rumors were true. Earlier that year (and at least one instance a few years prior) there had been rumors of his death circulating throughout the internet from prominent musicians and free jazz aficionados. I had been searching for Abdul Wadud for two years before meeting him for this interview in November 2014. ![]()
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