Beyoncé is the woman I've been waiting for all my life

Little Annie Bandez, best known for her distinctive, seductive and abstract shaping of blues and jazz, has had an incredible subcultural impact on music.

As a teenager with her band Annie Anxiety and The Asexuals she had regular gigs at the iconic New York club Max's Kansas City. During the eighties, she moved to the anarcho-punk palace Crass and has since collaborated with musicians and greats such as Antoni, Mark Almond, Lee Perry, Coil or Lydia Lunch. Having said all this, it is clear to you why the phrase "pioneer of the avant-garde" can be considered insufficient for this incredible woman.

Recently, Annie has focused on painting, and the famous Gavin Brown Gallery in New York hosted her solo exhibition. However, despite all these achievements, Annie remained sweet and kind. Somehow, just in line with her name: Little Annie, all petite and delicate, a woman who radiates kindness and eccentricity.

ABOUT GROWING UP

My father was a soldier and one of those who liberated the Dachau camp, so I think it is clear why questions of race or nation were not raised in our house. He didn't believe in those things and it's a really great way to raise a child, but on the other hand, I'm just now learning about my family history and background. So I recently discovered that, apart from my grandmother being black, I have South African, Japanese and Arab blood. It's amazing what a DNA test can reveal to you!

At school I had a teacher who called me a communist. I was eleven years old!

My sister and I were lucky with the education our parents gave us. For example, we weren't allowed to watch I Love Lucy, feminism wasn't a topic that was brought up, like race, but we were raised to believe that we could do anything regardless of the world around us. In the series I Love Lucy, the main character plays with men and always turns out to be naive and funny. It's a stereotype that we didn't have the opportunity to observe, and now I'm very grateful for that.

We lived about two miles from Manhattan, but it felt like we were light years away from that famous place. I think my parents thought they were doing us a favor by moving to Yonkers, but I hated that horrible place and ran away as soon as I got the chance. I was fourteen when I went to Manhattan, and at sixteen I lived in the Chelsea Hotel. There was another interesting thing about my growing up, which was that one of the teachers at school, from the age of eleven, constantly called me a communist.

ABOUT YOURSELF AS AN INSPIRATION TO OTHER WOMEN

Of course I would like to inspire and motivate other women. Recently, a friend of mine took me to a Beyoncé concert, and I can't describe how delighted I was with her, her performance, her singing, her impact on the audience. Such influence is fascinating and if you still use it for something good... When I watched Formation, I couldn't believe that someone was finally doing something, that it was working. When I started playing, few women were into it, but honestly, I never thought about my gender. All the way to Beyoncé. When I saw her show, all those women who came and all of them dressed up just for themselves and for themselves, somehow it dawned on me that until then I had taken myself and my authenticity for granted.

Beyoncé is actively working to create a space where dark-skinned women, just like those from working-class families, can equally discuss feminism, and if that's not progress, I don't know what is.

When the police killed Eric Garner, I was still in New York, and I still remember when the verdict was passed that no one would be charged. I don't normally watch TV, but that was the evening when the Christmas lights were turned on and I thought that someone had to speak out about this injustice. I think Lady Gaga should have turned on the lights, it was live on TV and nobody said anything. How furious I was. That's why, when I saw the effect that Beyoncé has on her mostly female audience and the power of her video, I realized that I've been waiting all my life for someone like her, a woman who actively works to create a space where dark-skinned women, just like them from working class families, they can equally argue about feminism and if that's not progress, I don't know what is.

ABOUT FEMALE RIVALRY AND FEMINISM

I don't think it's natural for women to behave that way. Women really own so little, hardly even their own bodies. And by the way, it's such a shame when I think that I've worked with so few women compared to the men who have been there throughout my career and even my life, and all of this is just because the women I would have worked with simply weren't there. By the way, some of my greatest role model and inspiration were Nina Simone, Shirley Brown, Mavis Staples and Lily Allgate, not only because of their music, but also because of their ideas. And, ultimately, I have never called myself a feminist, because I am a humanist, but I am not a humanist, I am everything - the same, if you understand me.

ABOUT THE CREATION OF PROGRESSIVE MUSIC

New York and Essex were exciting and real places for me, and they fit in with everything I knew and believed. When Penny Rimbaud and I made Barbed Wire Halo in 1981, we thought we were making a disco record. I know it doesn't sound like that at all, but regardless, the two of us enjoyed listening to disco together. By the way, Malcom X is the vocalist who touched me the most. I was five or six when he was killed, and my mother gave me his autobiography when I was twelve. If only that book were reading material in every school in the country.

Consciously not getting involved in any drama is probably one of the most radical things I've experienced in my entire life.

ABOUT EXTREMES IN LIFE

There have been so many unconventional things in my life, crashes, wrong places at wrong times, everything. But perhaps the most important lesson I learned was when I lived in an apartment in Manhattan, and my neighbors from the apartment below were constantly—I mean constantly—complaining about the noise made by my three-pound chihuahua, Sparky. It was really funny and it went on for ages. I persistently tried to smooth the situation, to send them a Christmas card, to talk to the janitor, but it was no use. I didn't even realize how destructive it was. And then, all of a sudden, I just realized that it wasn't my damn problem. They are the ones who wanted the problem persistently and, once I got it into my head, I decided to ignore them. Now, while that doesn't seem extreme, it actually is! Consciously not getting involved in any drama is probably one of the most radical things I've experienced in my entire life.