André Benjamin has the Hendrix swagger down, and we know he can write a song. But how's his air guitar? And more importantly, can he make guitar shred-face while doing it?
In this first full trailer for Jimi: All Is By My Side, we not only get to hear Benjamin do Hendrix's spaced-out Seattle hippy voice, but we also get a wide variety of guitar faces from Outkast's better half.
Starting with the classic overbite, "I'm about to say FFFFFfffffar out!" guitar-face:
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/andre.3000.guitar.face_.3.png" caption="Andre Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix in "Jimi: All Is By My Side."" credit="" alt="andre.3000.guitar.face.3"]
Then there's the "MMMmmm, I'm good" guitar-face
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/andre.3000.hendrix.guitar.face_.1.png" caption="Andre Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix in "Jimi: All Is By My Side."" credit="Screenshot/YouTube" alt="andre.3000.hendrix.guitar.face.1"]
You can't go wrong with the classic O-face guitar face
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/andre.3000.as_.jimi_.guitar.face_.2.png" caption="Andre Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix in "Jimi: All Is By My Side."" credit="Screenshot/YouTube" alt="andre.3000.as.jimi.guitar.face.2"]
Don't forget to smile guitar-face!
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/andre.3000.hendrix.guitar.face_.5.png" caption="Andre Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix in "Jimi: All Is By My Side."" credit="Screenshot/YouTube" alt="andre.3000.hendrix.guitar.face.5"]
And our favorite Hendrix, eyes-closed, mouth-breathing, ecstasy-of-being-a-god guitar-face
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/andre.3000.hendrix.guitar.face_.4.png" caption="Andre Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix in "All Is By My Side."" credit="Screenshot/YouTube" alt="andre.3000.hendrix.guitar.face.4"]
One thing we won't see: Benjamin-as-Hendrix playing any actual songs written by Jimi. The filmmakers could never make nice with the guitar god's estate. But like most artists of his era, Hendrix played plenty of covers, and the film covers the year of his life that began as an unknown session and backup man. So there's more than enough music to make this work.
Jimi: All Is By My Side, written and directed by 12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley, comes out September 26 after a couple of delays getting into theaters.