Nicki Minaj is giving fans a rare glimpse at her adorable baby.

In a sweet video posted on social media on Saturday (May 29), in which Minaj’s baby is seen being held in a standing position — perhaps getting ready to support himself and to eventually take a step on his own — the rapper talks lovingly to her little one.

Minaj captioned the clip with a teddy bear emoji. Keeping his real name private, in public she’s affectionately referred to him as “Papa Bear.”

She welcomed her son with husband Kenneth Petty in late September. In October she first shared a photo of a tiny baby foot, followed by a full picture featuring his cute face in January.

See the new baby video Minaj shared below.

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This week, Olivia Rodrigo scored her second No. 1 debut on the Hot 100 (after “Drivers License”) with “Good 4 U,” the third single off her acclaimed freshman album Sour. The feat makes Sour the first debut album ever to score two No. 1 debuts on the pop chart.

“Good 4 U” racked up 43.2 million U.S. streams and sold 12,000 downloads in the week ending May 20, according to MRC Data, while also drawing 3.8 million radio airplay audience impressions in the week ending May 23. The song also debuted atop the Billboard Global 200 and at No. 5 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. tally.

Explore the team of musicians, producers and more behind the track with recording credits provided by Jaxsta below.

Artists:
Main Artist – Olivia Rodrigo

Songwriters:
Composer Lyricist – Daniel Nigro
Composer Lyricist – Olivia Rodrigo

Producers:
Producer – Alexander 23
Producer – Daniel Nigro

Production Team:
Drum Programming – Alexander 23
Drum Programming – Daniel Nigro

Engineers:
Asst. Recording Engineer – Ryan Linvill
Mastering Engineer – Randy Merrill
Mixer – Mitch McCarthy
Recording Engineer – Daniel Nigro

Performers:
Acoustic Guitar – Daniel Nigro
Background Vocalist – Alexander 23
Background Vocalist – Daniel Nigro
Bass – Alexander 23
Bass – Daniel Nigro
Electric Guitar – Alexander 23
Electric Guitar – Daniel Nigro
Synthesizer – Daniel Nigro

Labels:
Distributor – Universal Music Group
Label – Olivia Rodrigo PS / Interscope / Geffen

Explore the full “Good 4 U” credits on Jaxsta here.

LONDON – The U.K. faces another lost summer of cancelled festivals unless the government steps in to provide urgent financial support, a report from Parliament’s Digital Culture, Media and Sport Committee warns.

The report backs calls from across the live industry for a government-backed insurance scheme that would cover the cost of last-minute cancellations as a result of COVID-19 for music events scheduled to take place after June 21. That’s the earliest possible date that the British government has said that concerts and festivals can resume without restrictions in the U.K.

Despite repeated calls from live execs for the government to introduce insurance protections in the U.K., ministers have ruled out such support before all pandemic-related restrictions are lifted. That would be too late for festival promoters looking to stage events later this summer, says the DCMS committee, which is also holding a separate inquiry into the streaming business. (The results of that probe are expected to be published in the coming weeks.)

“The vast majority of music festivals do not have the financial resilience to cover the costs of another year of late-notice cancellations,” said committee chair Julian Knight in announcing the inquiry’s findings. “If the commercial insurance market won’t step in, Ministers must, and urgently.”

Similar government-backed insurance schemes exist in the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Denmark, and, after months of delays, were recently finalized in Germany. They provide a much-needed safety net for promoters committing non-recoupable upfront costs for future events amid the uncertainty of a pandemic.

The committee’s inquiry into the future of U.K. music festivals began on Nov. 6, with Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, Paul Reed, chief executive at the Association of Independent Festivals, and Sacha Lord, co-founder of Parklife festival, among the execs called to give evidence before members.

UK Music CEO Jamie Njoku-Goodwin welcomed the committee’s recommendations and said the report arrived at a “make or break moment for this year’s summer festival season.”

In 2019, almost 1,000 music festivals took place in the U.K., attended by more than five million people and contributing £1.7 billion ($2.4 billion) to the economy, according to the umbrella industry association LIVE. Last year, all but a handful of socially distanced events were cancelled as a result of COVID-19, leading to a 90% fall in revenues.

This year has also seen the cancellation of more than a quarter of U.K. festivals with capacities of 5,000 or more, including Glastonbury, Download, BST Hyde Park and Bluedot, according to research cited by the committee.

Many more cancellations will follow if insurance is not immediately provided, with independent promoters and festivals hardest hit, the committee says. “Without the backing of large, transnational companies, they cannot take the financial risk,” says the final report. It goes on to criticize government ministers for refusing to “take multiple opportunities to address the market failure” around insurance provisions for live events.

Promoters are feeling the pressure. According to the Association of Independent Festivals, for a festival taking place in early July organizers will have paid around 40% of total costs by June 14 – the date when the government is due to announce whether restrictions are to be lifted one week later.

Without some form of insurance, “whatever happens with the reopening timetable, the vast majority of events could pull the plug in the coming weeks,” says Greg Parmley, the CEO of LIVE.

Despite the ongoing uncertainty, the U.K.’s vaccination effort — which has so far seen 70% of British adults receive at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot – has given execs some cause for hope that Europe’s largest touring market will reopen by mid-summer, despite a recent rise in COVID-19 infections relating to the Indian variant.

Two of the U.K.’s biggest festivals — the 185,000-capacity dual-site Reading and Leeds festivals headlined by Liam Gallagher, Stormzy and Post Malone and the 70,000-capacity Creamfields — sold out their late-August dates. A number of other festivals that traditionally run between May and July, such as Isle of Wight, All Points East and Neighbourhood Weekender, have rescheduled to later in the summer.

Meanwhile, a 10,000-capacity, three-day “Download Pilot” festival run by Festival Republic/Live Nation — headlined by Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and Enter Shikari — is scheduled to take place at Donington Park, Derby June 18-20 as part of the second phase of the government’s Events Research Program – a series of pilot concerts set up to provide scientific data on how small and large-scale events can safely resume.

The first phase of the program saw two club nights take place in Liverpool as well as a one-day music festival, headlined by Blossoms, in front of 5,000 fans. Ticket holders were encouraged to take a PCR test on the day of the event and a second one five days later. Having analyzed the data, public health officials found that the events did not cause any detectable spread of Covid-19 across the region.

Reflecting on the Events Research Program, the DCMS committee report said that despite initial positive data it was “not confident the pilots will deliver the evidence needed in time to lift all restrictions on live events from 21 June.”

Other recommendations made in the 40-page report include tougher measures requiring festivals to reduce their environmental impact and a change in legislation to allow illegal drug-checking services to operate lawfully at U.K. festivals.

The report also addresses some of the barriers that exist for British and European touring artists as a result of the U.K. leaving the European Union. It warns that tours and festivals are at risk “unless the Government finds a solution to Brexit-related costs and complexities.”

Ministers now have eight weeks to respond to the committee’s findings. Although they aren’t obliged to enact its recommendations, they are expected to engage with them.

A prominent Lebanese singer and composer known for his strong opinions said he has been deported from Saudi Arabia after a 50-day detention — mostly in solitary confinement — because of opinions expressed online in support of Lebanon’s president and his ally the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Samir Sfeir arrived in Beirut Thursday from Saudi Arabia. He looked haggard and grizzled — having lost his trademark long black bob. He also said he was forgiving of the authorities in Saudi Arabia, telling The Associated Press in a telephone call that he is holding no grudge.

Sfeir, who had residency in the kingdom for five years, said he is now banned from returning.

“I was bothered by the manner. I wish they just told me to leave and not come back. I would have done it,” he said.

Sfeir said he was “a political prisoner” in the Kingdom and his captors only questioned him on political issues, including his links to Hezbollah and President Michel Aoun. No charges were pressed, he said.

“My investigator told me that I am making political statements,” Sfeir said. “In their system, they don’t have such thing. They disapproved.”

After several interrogation sessions by different Saudi investigators, Sfeir was released and sent to Lebanon. Other than solitary confinement, Sfeir said he was treated respectfully. His wife, Marie, told a local TV station that Sfeir refused to eat in the first days of his detention and didn’t have his medicine.

There was no official comment from Saudi Arabia about the reasons and conditions of his detention and release.

Sfeir’s detention raised concerns at home that he was the latest victim of rising tension between Lebanon and its traditional ally, Saudi Arabia, which has increasingly used pressure, instead of assistance, in dealing with the small Mediterranean country where the Iran-backed Hezbollah dominates.

Only last month, the kingdom barred all fresh produce arriving from Lebanon from entering Saudi Arabia after drug smuggling was found in such shipments. It was a sharp measure that dealt a major blow to one of the main sources of foreign currency to the embattled Mediterranean country.

Tension between the two regional powerhouses — Saudi Arabia and Iran — often translated into a deadlock in decision-making in Lebanese politics. Saudi Arabia, which is seeking new allies in Lebanon, has imposed sanctions on Hezbollah, labelled a terrorist group by the United States and other Gulf countries.

Sfeir said he was the victim of an online smear campaign that used his old tweets and TV comments which he claimed were misrepresented to appear offensive to the kingdom. Sfeir said his investigators viewed some of his statements as offensive to Lebanon’s army.

Sfeir is known for his political statements in the media and on other platforms to criticize opponents of Aoun, and has expressed his unwavering support to Hezbollah as a defender of the country’s unity. He said the alleged smear campaign was launched after he posted a picture of himself receiving a vaccine in Saudi Arabia — something his detractors thought he did not deserve.

“Social media and electronic flies [armies] are ruining things,” he said. “They asked me many questions … They said, I am not allowed to be offensive to any Arab country.”

It’s the battle of the founders this weekend, as Timbaland and Swizz Beatz face off in the next Verzuz event, going down Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET.

The pair first dueled onstage in 2018 at the Hot 97 Summer Jam in East Rutherford, N.J., as part of a producer clash battle — long before Verzuz premiered virtually in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The superproducer rematch follows the girl-group vocal-off between SWV and Xscape that went down May 8 and the Easter Weekend face-off between The Isley Brothers and Earth, Wind & Fire.

Co-created by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz as a form of socially distanced entertainment in the midst of COVID-19, Verzuz is now in its second season. In recent months, we’ve seen Method Man vs. Redman and D’Angelo & Friends, as well as Ashanti vs. Keyshia Cole, Jeezy vs. Gucci Mane, and E-40 vs. Too Short.

Speaking of Tim and Swizz, they made industry headlines in March when news broke that Verzuz had been acquired by the Triller Network, parent company of the Triller app. While Saturday night’s Verzuz will still be watchable on Instagram Live — as every battle has been since the start — fans can also check it out on Triller or with the FITE streaming app.

You can watch it all go down Saturday night, May 8, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on VerzuzTV’s Instagram Live, or you can also stream the battle with Triller or the FITE app.