(born 24 Octоber 1971), formerly known as Antony Hegarty is an English singer, composer, and visual artist, who is best known as the lead singer of the band Antony and the Johnsons.
Anohni was born in the city of Chichester, England, in 1971. Anohni's family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States in 1981.
In 1990, she moved to Manhattan, New York to study at New York University, where she founded a performance art collective (Blacklips) with Johanna Constantine.
Entering a musical career, she began performing with an ensemble of NYC musicians as Antony and the Johnsons. Their first album, Antony and the Johnsons, was released in 2000 on David Tibet's label Durtro. Their second album, I Am a Bird Now (2005), was a commercial and critical success, earning Anohni the Mercury Music Prize.
In 2016, Anohni became the second openly transgender person nominated for an Academy Award; She was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Song, along with J. Ralph, for the song "Manta Ray" in the film Racing Extinction.
Anohni was born in Chichester, West Sussex, England, UK, in 1971. In 1977, her family moved to Amsterdam for a year, and then, in 1981, they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area of California where she grew up. As a teenager, she was influenced by Kate Bush as well as British synthpop – in particular, singers such as Marc Almond, Alison Moyet and Boy George, and was also strongly influenced by underground stars Diamanda Galás, Rozz Williams, Divine and Klaus Nomi and American singers including Nina Simone, Otis Redding, and Donny Hathaway.
In 1990, Anohni moved to Manhattan to attend the Experimental Theatre Wing of New York University, and founded the performance collective Blacklips with creative partner Johanna Constantine. She spent the next several years singing in after-hours bars and clubs using pre-recorded cassettes as self-accompaniment as well as writing and directing late night theatre productions.
Anohni is transgender and uses feminine pronouns. In an interview with Flavorwire in November 2014 she stated "My closest friends and family use feminine pronouns for me. I have not mandated the press do one thing or another... In my personal life I prefer ‘she’. I think words are important. To call a person by their chosen gender is to honor their spirit, their life and contribution. ‘He’ is an invisible pronoun for me, it negates me."
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