Andre for Jimi!

Here’s something I don’t get.  Experience Hendrix LLC, which is in charge of the Jimi Hendrix catalogue, is denying any rights of the guitarist’s works to a biopic starring Outkast’s Andre Benjamin/3000 called All Is By My Side. That’s fair, I guess, but I also don’t see why not. If I was Janie (Hendrix’s sister who runs the company) I too would be finicky about who I allowed to play and portray my legendary brother’s music but my argument is that it’s Andre 3000!

FIRST: He has that kind of beautiful -for – a – man’s face like Jimi Hendrix had and as a fellow afro wearer, I believe that he could pull it all off rather beautifully. Andre 3000 in the ‘Hey Ya’ video alone is reason why he could play a famous somebody in the sixties that had the wholesome girls wetting themselves screaming.

SECOND: I think he can act. The only role I remember him in (and by remember I mean I know he was in it and didn’t gross me out as an actor) was Four Brothers with Mark Wahlberg and Tyrese Gibson. There’s just something there that makes me feel like he could pull of being Jimi and it wouldn’t be at all offensive.

THIRD: He’s actually a musician. So that’s already cool because they could have had someone who didn’t even know how to hold a guitar to try and pretend to be the greatest great. Refer back to the ‘Hey Ya’ video and watch him strum convincingly on that guitar but put that together with his getting into an acting role and it sounds to me like you could have a Jimi Hendrix type.

Rollingstone.com quotes a representative of the Hendrix estate as saying “They want to make a Jimi Hendrix movie without Jimi Hendrix music. It would be like making a movie about Lincoln without being able to use the Gettysburg Address.”
And they’re right. It doesn’t make sense especially because, and maybe this is just me, I don’t see Mr 3000 taking a role like this very lightly – so what’s the problem? If they came out with reasons why not and they were valid I would respectfully accept them but right now, to me, it just seems a little hater-ish and absurd.

P.s. For the movie the focus is on Hendrix circa ’66 and ’67 so Andre 3000’s recording covers like the Beatles’ “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” and some Muddy Waters and Cream jams

P.p.s. Below is my favorite Jimi Hendrix song.