In my case it wasn't changing the color because I was setting the color in my xml resource.
After delete the line that set the color it worked perfectly programmatically
This is an example I did in a RecyclerView
final Drawable drawable = ContextCompat.getDrawable(mContext, R.drawable.ic_icon).mutate();
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN) {
holder.image.setBackground(drawable);
} else {
holder.image.setBackgroundDrawable(drawable);
}