R KELLY

R. Kelly confessed that losing his voice was frustrating.

The “Step in The Name of Love” singer underwent emergency throat surgery in July 2011. The star admitted that during his recovery he didn’t have his voice, fact which annoyed him, because he just wanted to sing.

In an interview that R. Kelly gave to MTV News, the 46-year-old R&B singer noted that his new single “Shut Up” was inspired by the forced vocal rest.

“I got frustrated, first of all, because I didn't have my voice. Trying to play it off like I do, but I really didn't and that became frustrating because at the end of the day, you have to prove either you do or you don't,” he gushed.

The Grammy Award-winning artist was also disturbed by the way he was treated by some members of his trusted entourage while recuperating. According to R. Kelly, many of his closest friends wrote him off as washed up.

“I got frustrated with that, along with not getting the encouragement I needed and inspiration I needed from the people around me,” he revealed. “Instead, people started falling off, couldn't get nobody on the phone or you start hearing rumors ... 'he ain't got it no more, he got old' and this, that and the other.”

Nevertheless, Kelly is a positive person. He saw this incident as a crucial period of growth.

“I'm the type of person that can take tragedy and turn it into triumph and that's what I did,” he said. “The surgery and the whole vocal cord thing was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, because look at me now.”

R. Kelly's twelfth solo studio album Black Panties was released on the 6th of December. In just a couple of weeks the record has reached number four on the US Billboard 200 chart.