“WE WORK THE SAME WAY — VIBING AND JAMMING” GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN

FOR A SPELL, Jack White felt like he’d slid a riddle into a song. During Into The Twilight, the demented rave-up at the centre of Fear Of The Dawn, two samples from acrobatic vocal jazz institution Manhattan Transfer crisscross as the song’s final minute begins. But none of White’s music-zealot friends spotted the snippets – that is, until he sent the song to A Tribe Called Quest mastermind Q-Tip. “‘Is that a Manhattan Transfer you’ve got on there?’” White remembers Tip asking. “He knew instantly.”

Q-Tip first heard The White Stripes around the start of the century, when De Stijl caught his ear. He introduced himself to White backstage in New York, ignoring any talk of how much his raps had meant to White to discuss other sounds instead.

“We were both music-enthused, into gear and mikes and studio stuff,” Q-Tip tells MOJO. “We look for the information people wouldn’t know about – who played this on this record or what kind of board Led Zeppelin used to record Houses

Of The Holy. We hit it off there.” The two stayed in touch for years, and toyed with working together, but those tentative talks solidified only after Phife Dawg died during the recording of the first Tribe album in nearly 20 years. White flew to the funeral and stuck around to contribute to two tracks on We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service,

including one with both Elton John and Busta Rhymes.

“We work the same way – vibing and jamming, both geeks trying to get the right sounds,” Q-Tip says. “He’s a real mensch in the studio, chasing a dragon of inspiration and creativity. He loses the sense that he’s ‘Jack White’ and becomes just a dude married to the energy, the concept, the song.”

The pair have worked on several tracks since Thank You..., but they never managed to finish one – until now. When White convinced Q-Tip to add a verse to Hi-De-Ho, he promised they’d eventually get back to those earlier pieces. The rapper likes that prospect.

“We have a lot of ideas that maybe we can put together into a long-play one day. I’d be game,” he says, laughing. “That’s my boy, my friend. We’ve got a great brotherhood we’ll probably have until we go.”