By Julie Miller
Surprising news for Kanye West fans who discounted a recent lyric about meeting a Bush-administration official as a fictional flourish: the Grammy-winning artist did in fact meet with former Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet, as his recent track, “Clique,” suggests. The lyrics from the song, off his Kanye West Presents G.O.O.D. Music: Cruel Summer album, state, “Yeah, I’m talking business, we talking CIA/ I’m 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.”
Amazingly, longtime Tenet spokesman Bill Harlow confirmed the West-Tenet meeting to Wired.com’s Danger Room column. A few months ago, Harlow says, the unlikely pair “bumped into each other” as Tenet was departing a New York City business meeting. According to Wired.com, “someone in the various entourages introduced the rapper to the former intelligence chief,” and the two “chatted briefly,” although not about Maybachs, Harlow claims.
Tenet served as director of the C.I.A. from 1997 until 2004, after which President Bush controversially awarded him the Medal of Freedom following Tenet’s incorrect claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Tenet, also, is not much of a rap fan, his spokesperson clarifies. “He’s more of a Bruce Springsteen guy.”