Yoko Ono: 'I'm an important musician'

Yoko Ono has professed that she's made an "important" contribution to the world of music during her lifetime.

The 'Open The Box' singer told Spinner that she's never let public ridicule shake her confidence in her own talents.

"I always thought that I was an important musician," Ono remarked. "If you don't have that confidence, why would you go on and do it?"

She added: "People accuse artists of being narcissists - of course we are! If we don't like ourselves, who's going to like us? No-one in the world liked me, everybody hated me, but still I went on. How about that?"

Ono further explained that for many years she wasn't entirely sure why her late husband John Lennon's music resonated with his devoted fans, but she came to understand his "genius" while celebrating what would have been the former Beatle's 70th birthday last fall.

"When we were together I was a cocky artist, as myself, independent of John. I never said, 'Oh John, you're such a genius'," she admitted. "I never felt that way. I always felt we were equal in what we were doing. And when I heard all his music last year, I thought, 'My God, he was a genius!'"

The musician recently claimed that the 9.0 earthquake that struck her homeland of Japan in March proved to be "the second biggest shock" of her lifetime.

Watch Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band perform 'I'm Going Away Smiling' below: