Megan Thee Stallion is urging you to check on your friends.
The rapper, whose offstage name is Megan Pete, is part of a new public service announcement called Seize the Awkward, a national campaign to encourage young people to talk to friends about mental health.
“It’s important that we regularly check in on our friends and family and make sure to show empathy, encouragement and love when they’re struggling,” she said in a statement. “A strong support system can make a powerful difference in someone’s life.”
Megan Thee Stallion’s involvement in the campaign may help reduce mental health stigma, Dr. Broderick Sawyer, a clinical psychologist in Louisville, Ky., tells CNN.
She is “finally making healing look as cool as it should be,” Sawyer says, adding that her involvement “is forcing the conversation to go mainstream.
“Many centralizing platforms just have resources that pretend mental health is one-size-fits-all, that everyone is the same,” Sawyer says. “The truth is that people have wildly different experiences depending on their identities, and types of sociopolitical oppression they go through.”
Robert Gebbia, CEO of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, told CNN that Pete’s involvement may feel more relatable as she works to reach young, marginalized people.
Pete has also touched on mental health in her music: Her website, “Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too” gathers mental health resources in one place.
RELATED: Megan Thee Stallion Launches Mental Health Resources Website
The suicide rate for children and teens ages 10 to 24 has been increasing, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I’ve always been told I gotta be strong. Thick-skinned, stiff upper lip. Tough as nails,” Megan Thee Stallion said in a video for the campaign.
“But to be everything for everybody… it wears on you,” she continues. “‘Black don’t crack,’ they say. But it can. I can. We all can.”
“Reach out to a friend if you see them going through it,” she adds. “No matter who you are, being vulnerable is what makes us whole.”
For those struggling and not sure where to start the conversation, the 28-year-old rapper also