Kanye West Really Did Meet With Ex-CIA Director

Kanye West may have taken some poetic license with a reference on his latest record to former CIA director George Tenet, but Tenets camp confirms to Danger Room that the rap star did in fact meet with the one-time U.S. spy chief.

On Clique, a standout track from this weeks Kanye West Presents G.O.O.D. Music: Cruel Summer, Yeezy relates an anecdote so unexpected and specific that it had several listeners suspending disbelief about rapper boasts: Yeah, Im talking business, we talking CIA/ Im talking George Tenet, I seen him the other day/ He asked me about my Maybach, think he had the same/ Except mine tinted and his might have been rented.

Verdict: partly true. To adapt the chorus for a second, George Tenet really was, uh, interacting with the clique. There is some truth to that story, longtime Tenet spokesman Bill Harlow tells Danger Room. Thats a better track record than most rappers can claim and, for that matter, most CIA analysts.

Harlow explains that a few months ago, Tenet was leaving a business meeting in a New York City building when, unexpectedly, Kanye West entered. They bumped into each other, Harlow said, and someone in the various entourages introduced the rapper to the former intelligence chief, who left government service in 2004 after infamously vouching for the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

They chatted briefly, Harlow says. The next thing you know, its recorded history. This should add grist to the online conspiracy theory that Kanye is a member of the Illuminati.

Only one thing: There was no discussion of Maybachs, Harlow says. Tenet doesnt drive one rented, leased, owned or otherwise. (Notice, however, that Kanye doesnt claim Tenet has one; he merely speculates.)

Not that the ex-CIA directors crew has a problem with Kanyes characterization: I think its poetic license. Nor is Tenet inclined to fact-check a rap song. Its not his genre, Harlow continues. Hes more of a Bruce Springsteen guy.

Still, now Tenet is immortalized in pop culture as a baller, without any reference to Iraq or WMDs.

Home page photo: NRK P3 /Flickr

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Kanye West Really Did Meet With Ex-CIA Director