For all of this, Ono has been remarkably under-heard as a musician. “Were you gettin’ that?” you can hear Lennon asking at the end of “Why,” the opener of Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, on which she tears into that word with abandon: “WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?” Apparently studio personnel sometimes would turn off the equipment while Ono recorded her takes. "In those days, when I started to sing, all the engineers would just go away to the bathroom or something,” she said in a 2012 interview. It’s just one example of how Ono struggled to be taken seriously, particularly by the music world. She was routinely attacked by the racist music press (Esquire once titled a piece about her “John Rennon's Excrusive Gloupie”) and sexist Beatles fans (at her her 1971 art show “This Is Not Here,” some work was destroyed and toilets were flooded). The depth of her work has often been overlooked: Here is someone who was an early pioneer of feminism in music, of straight-up screaming in music, of the beauty in harshness.

Through it all, Ono has endured with grace, love, and artfulness. Her work often stands as a testament to art as a force for change—by making challenging work, yes, but also by funding projects like the Center for Constitutional Rights and Pussy Riot through the LennonOno Grant for Peace. And though peace remains at the center of her work, Ono never stops shifting her interests as an artist, veering more towards dance music over the last decade. She’s stayed connected to contemporary musicians through collaborative projects, ranging from her 2007 remix LPs under the name ONO, to her 2012 album with Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, to her 2013 curation of Meltdown Festival. Below, past collaborators and admirers discuss her musical influence.

Yoko Ono performs at Cafe OTO on March 22, 2014 in London, England. Dave J Hogan

Yoko in 2014. (Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)

Kim Gordon

“Yoko Ono is definitely ‘the other’ in the best sense. ‘The other’ as a term is used in sociology to refer to an outsider; it’s also used to describe any gender outside the norm, which could also include women in a male construct society. Yoko, the outsider, the interloper into pop music culture via the enormous world of ‘the Beatles,’ their fans and all their expectations. Though what position could be more natural for an artist? To be an outsider, experimenter, a risk taker, a poetess, a feminist, a survivor. Coming out of the Fluxus movement, she made art and films—performances that were already so far out of the mainstream that American mainstream audiences had no context for her music. What draws some people to the unconventional and others not—who knows? It’s kind of mind blowing to hear John Lennon playing feedback guitar on songs like ‘Cambridge 1969’ or ‘Mulberry.’ These records contain, still, some of the most radical music ever made. As someone like myself who also comes from the art world, Yoko is my mainstream, and being ‘the other’ is a way of life to celebrate!”

Merrill Garbus of tUnE__-__yArDs

“I can’t think of a better time in history to hear a woman scream-sing her head off. Leaps of faith inspire other leaps of faith. It doesn’t matter if you can’t bear listening to more than 30 seconds of ‘Cambridge 1969,’ let alone 26 minutes. (Though I expect if you want a representative soundtrack of 1969, this is the music.) What matters is the boldness of such an artful move, and what it allowed for in its wake. What a vulnerable thing it is to sing at all! Let alone sing in the unpretty, intense, often ecstatic timbres of life as a woman and mother, as a wife—this particular wife. Yet there is no hesitancy or insecurity in Yoko’s work. I hear only inventiveness, curiosity, and the brazenness of the female scream-sing.”

Anohni

“I have always looked to Yoko Ono for the deepest feminist wisdom and artistic courage. Her influence has been profound. Yoko also endured public scorn as a female artist in the way that some activists endure years of imprisonment. This experience seems only to have amplified her grace.”

Meghan Remy of U.S. Girls

“Donald ‘This Is Not A Joke’ Trump will be the 45th president of the (too powerful) United States. There could never be a more appropriate time for the widespread redistribution of Yoko Ono’s ideas. Peace, love, and ‘The Feminization of Society’ should be our only goals. While we work on these three monumental tasks, I encourage the companies involved in these reissues to stop releasing all non-Yoko records. Next, divert all available funds to the identification, reproduction, and distribution of whatever chemical magic Yoko contains that allows her to remain hopeful and driven in the face of empirical evidence that we live in a very sick (perhaps incurable?) world. I wanna bathe in that chemical every morning.”

Kathleen Hanna

“Whether harsh, angry or pleading, Yoko Ono’s music speaks back to oppression with an empathetic optimism that seems impossible to achieve. She’s considered the first punk singer by many. I once showed up at a Take Back the Night speak-out with a portable record player and played all 5 minutes and 37 seconds of Ono’s classic ‘Why.’”

Peaches

“I am always amazed at how ahead of her time Yoko is with her philosophies in art, her approach to music experimentation and lyrics. I was invited to perform with the Plastic Ono band in Berlin for Yoko’s 80th birthday. Yoko asked me to pick my favorite Yoko Ono song and sing it with her on stage. I chose ‘Yes, I’m A Witch.’ This song is a perfect example of Yoko’s unabashed incredible ability to be straightforward, political, and still speak to our hearts. In this song, she owns the lyrics. ‘I'm a witch, I'm a bitch, I don't care what you say’—a sentiment expressed in a manner so beyond its time. ‘Each time we don't say what we wanna say, we're dying/Each time we don't say how do we feel, we're dying/Each time we gotta do what we wanna do, we're living/Each time we're open our minds to what we see, we're living’—so true and important today. Yoko transcends generations, will be forward-thinking for years to come, and is the biggest badass of them all!”

Mike Watt of the Minutemen

“Fearless and forward. Looking back on Yoko Ono's journey with music, I am most inspired by her courage to wrestle with expression, and find myself big time encouraged to learn more on bass and explore with composition and words. It is an empowering fabric she weaves with her endeavor, and I am most grateful. She is a true hard-charger and will not back down! Big sonkei from Watt for Yoko Ono.”

Julianna Barwick

“I had the opportunity to play at the 2013 Meltdown Festival that Yoko curated, and two years later, to perform with her at MOMA and Central Park. I was so humbled and honored by these experiences. They were unbelievably emotional and exhilarating—my favorite things that I've ever done. When I first met her, she held my hand and stared into my eyes the whole time we had our little chat. I felt a tremendous sense of power coming from this woman I was towering over. I thought to myself, ‘Soak this up.’ Yoko has always been a pioneer in art and music. The first time I saw her “Cut Piece” film, I couldn't believe she had done it in the ’60s. I saw Peaches do ‘Cut Piece’ at Meltdown 2013 and it was so shocking, still to this day.”