On one hand, this isn’t too surprising, as both Jay-Z and Jack White have publicly declared their hopes to collaborate someday, but on the other hand, holy crap! It actually happened! In an interview in the new issue of GQ (UK), the Dead Weather/Raconteurs/White Stripes rocker dropped the incredible news…

“I just did a record with Jay-Z,” said White. “We did a song together a few weeks ago. It was incredible. I played him something that I’ve been kicking around for a while and he immediately came out with words for it. It’s unbelievable-sounding.”

Perhaps Hova and White were introduced by mutual collaborator Alicia Keys.

Though White hasn’t made any previous forays into hip-hop (does this count?), Jay-Z is no stranger to rock collaborations, having previously teamed up with Linkin Park, John Mayer, and U2 to name a few.

There were many interesting musical moments during tonight’s “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon—which would be pretty hard to miss if you flipped through the channels during primetime television in the past couple hours. Though the program has only just begun here on the West Coast, we watched the stream on YouTube and want to encourage all those in our timezone to tune in asap to watch some great artists for a great a cause.

Sure, the most anticipated performance of the night was perhaps U2, Jay-Z, and Rihanna’s unveiling of their new song “Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour),” but we were more into Bruce Springsteen’s take on “We Shall Overcome,” as well as Neil Young (who just played “Long May You Run” for Conan O’Brien’s final Tonight Show) and Dave Matthews’ cover of Hank Williams classic “Alone and Forsaken.”

iTunes will offer all of tonight’s performances on Monday for the Hope for Haiti Now charity compilation at itunes.com/haiti, but until then, you can watch the Young/Matthews performance here or below, The Boss below or thataway, or check out the new Jay-Z/U2/Rihanna song here.

Most importantly, though, please donate here for the Haiti relief effort if you are able.

The list of musicians, actors, journalists, and celebrities set to appear and/or perform this Friday night on the “Hope For Haiti” telethon keeps growing by the hour, so here’s hoping all this star power will encourage lots of generosity as Haiti struggles to survive and rebuild after last week’s devastating earthquake. Most recently, musicians Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z have been announced as performers for the telecast, which will air on every major network and a number of cable channels at 8PM EST.

Musically, the most interesting update of late is that Jay-Z and U2 have collaborated on a brand new song for Haiti with producer Swizz Beatz. In fact, the writing and recording of the new tune came about rather quickly. “Last night we wrote a song,” the Edge said (via Consequence of Sound). “Bono got a call from a producer, Swizz. He and Jay-Z wanted to do something for Haiti. So, Bono came up with the phrase on the phone, and last night we were here, we wrote a song–finished, recorded, and sent it back to them.”

E! reports that Bono and Jay-Z are set to perform from the Robert Pattinson-hosted London portion of the telethon (George Clooney will host in Los Angeles, Wyclef Jean in New York City, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Haiti).

While all donations made during the event will go to seven different charities, including Red Cross, Oxfam America, and Partners in Health, additional money will be raised on iTunes with songs from the featured performers being made available following telecast.

Remember that minor blogospheric meltdown when it was revealed that MGMT were to appear on Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3? Yeah… what a summer. Well, as we all know by now, the MGMT bros were left off Hova’s final tracklist (I figured they were bumped off by Alicia Keyes or Mr. Hudson or something) and here’s why: “MGMT turned me down,” Jay-z told Gotham (via Digital Spy). Perhaps it was that “Brian Eno” track and they wanted to keep it for their next LP.

R.E.M. are apparently back in the studio, as a recent photo of Michael Stipe with Accelerate producer Jacknife Lee was sent to fansite Murmurs by R.E.M.’s tour manager, Bob Whittaker. Murmurs says the photo depicts Stipe and company starting “work on the new R.E.M. record.” Watch ‘em twiddle them knobs here.

Jay-Z and Alicia Keys brought the house down tonight, many hours before the Yankees beat the Phillies in game 2 of the MLB’s World Series.

Watch below or here as Jay-Z’s rhymes echo off Yankee Stadium walls and Alicia Keys drawls ‘cross Yankee Stadium stalls. Athletes bop their heads and Brooklyn’s own brings it home. It’s fun and less about rap. Perhaps even about baseball a bit.

Either way, a hit’s a hit:

Regina Spektor might be trying her hand at the less lucrative Broadway musical genre by penning the songs for an upcoming Sleeping Beauty adaptation, but she’s probably not going to be in need of cash anytime soon.

According to a press release uncovered by Consequence of Sound, Jay-Z has purchased the rights to a sample of Spektor’s “Chemo Limo,” off 2004’s Soviet Kitsch, for an upcoming track called “Crispy Benjamins,” which is due out later this year.

There are no other details as of now, but CoS speculates that the track could be on an upcoming deluxe edition of The Blueprint 3.

That’s a big move from singing with Ben Folds to jamming with Hova, but, either way, this track should be amazing and it’s nice to see Regina will be getting some much-deserved crispy Benjamins of her own.

It’s no wonder Bill O’Reilly and rappers love to hate on each other: If you add a couple 808s to O’Reilly’s show it could be a long political diss track every night (I didn’t say it would be a good diss track) and a little Fox News rivalry hype sure doesn’t hurt album sales. Well, Jay-Z has finally responded to O’Reilly and Dennis Miller’s post-election jabs on his second single from Blueprint 3, “Off That,” which just hit the net, and one of O’Reilly’s staffers in charge of reading Nah Right everyday must’ve alerted their boss.

Watch the segment here or below where O’Reilly plays a snippet of “Off That” with the lyrics: “Please tell Bill O’Reilly to fall back / Tell Rush Limbaugh to get off my balls / It’s 2010, not 1864 / How’s that for a mix? / Got a black president / Got green presidents”

O’Reilly’s reaction? “Hmmm… a regular Otis Redding, isn’t he?”

Meanwhile, check out Rick Rubin comparing Jay-Z to a great jazz saxophonist thataway.

*Update*

It’s no surprise that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has also now heard Jay-Z’s “Off That” and has a thing or two to say about the line, “Tell Rush Limbaugh to get off my balls.” Here’s part of the reaction (via Nah Right)

I would remind the rapper Jay-Z; Mr. Z, it is President Obama who wants mandated circumcision. We had that yesterday. That means if we need to save our penises from anybody, it’s Obama. I did not know I was on anybody’s balls.

Hear the full Limbaugh response below:

Reviews are pouring in from Jay-Z’s headlining set at All Points West in Jersey City, NJ last night and it looks like I missed out on one of the best shows of the year. Sure, Hova was stepping in at the last minute for fellow Brooklyn hip-hop giants the Beastie Boys, but that was no excuse for a phoned-in set: Jay-Z killed, playing a 28-song set, including a Michael Jackson tribute and special dedication to Adam “MCA” Yauch, whose recent cancer diagnosis led to last night’s awesome substitute performance.

“Jay-Z at All Points West,” Hova rapped (replacing original lyric “Beastie Boys at the Garden”) in his opening cover of the Beasties’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” reports Brooklyn Vegan. Later in the set, he announced, “I wanna dedicate this whole show to MCA. Get well soon!” According to Billboard, Hova added that the Beasties are “pioneers, one of the reasons [he’s] on this stage.”

The show wouldn’t be complete, however, without a Michael Jackson tribute: “If you take one thing from this concert, it should be that we don’t mourn death, we celebrate life,” Jay-Z said, before playing “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” with an added Jackson 5 “I Want You Back” sample.

Here’s an okay-quality YouTube of “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.” For more info on Jay-Z’s first U.S. festival gig, go here, there, or thataway.

Remember that lame Michael Phelps bong-gate scandal? When Jay-Z spoke to Cigar Aficionado, this year’s biggest news story about smoking had to be discussed and the rap mogul sure didn’t hold his tongue. Here’s the quote (via SOHH):

“You look at all these people who graduated from Princeton and Harvard, who are supposed to be pillars of the community — every day in the newspaper arrested for some kind of financial fraud. Then you look at someone like Michael Phelps. He’s 23. What’s he gonna do? He’s a kid. He’s going to experiment.”

Wow. Just when I thought the outrage over the ‘human dolphin’ smoking marijuana was already blown out of proportion, Jay-Z’s bringing the economic crisis into the mix. No, I kid, he makes a good point: We have better things to freak out about.