Efforts to “MUTE” R. Kelly may be actually helping the artist more than hurting his career and he clearly knows it!

The singer was recently caught on video arrogantly stating that the #MuteRKelly campaign is ?too late? to silence him.

[FLASHBACK: Women of Color Spark #MuteRKelly Movement… (VIDEO)]

Kellz made the comments during a live video shared a few days ago, and a portion of which was subsequently shared by sports and entertainment lawyer Exavier Pope.

Details + video below…

In the clip above, Kellys states:

I got a million motherfuckers hating me, but 40 billion muthaf*ckers loving me. I?m gonna take this musical shit, and I?m gonna inject these muthaf*ckers with this musical, beautiful muthaf*cking shit. I am handcuffed ? by my destiny.

He continues…

It?s too late, they shoulda did this shit 30 years ago. It?s too late. The music has been injected into the world ? I wanna propose a toast to all the strong muthaf*ckers in here, cause muthaf*ckers like you is why I still continue to do what I do. I have a basketball mentality. As long as I?ve got the ball, the world is on defense.

Sources close to the musician state that the speech was intended to state the strength of the musician?s musical legacy, however many feel that he was being arrogant as he’s avoided jail time despite the numerous accusations launched against him.

As you know, several companies associated with Kelly have been subject to increasing calls to cut ties with him due to the #MuteRKelly Movement.

On May 10th, Spotify reportedly removed R. Kelly’s music from its in-house playlists, however his music is still available on the platform. The following day, Apple Music announced it had taken similar steps.

Meanwhile, PageSix reports that streams of R. Kelly’s hits have increased despite efforts to the contrary.

Kelly?s streaming numbers have seen some small growth: Before the announcement, he averaged 6,584,000 weekly streams for the year, but from May 10 to May 16 he garnered 6,676,000 streams for the week, according to Nielsen Music.

The embattled singer?s streams have grown steadily over the last two years: His music averaged 4,709,000 weekly streams in 2016 and 5,666,000 weekly streams in 2017. For 2018 to date, he averages 6,674,000 weekly streams from Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and other platforms.

I guess that proves that all press is good press.