This week on Listen to Looch, Mary Lucia talks with Sam Choo, content manager at Call To Mind, Minnesota Public Radio's mental-health initiative.

"We're really leaning into doing more mental-health stuff on all of our services," Choo says, "like on MPR News, Classical MPR, and obviously, The Current, to talk about mental health and conditions and the people who are dealing with them in a more treatment-positive way."

Choo stresses that a key to addressing mental-health matters is to simply communicate openly about mental health. "Obviously, some people feel like mental-health discussions are awkward or hard to get into, and they don't need to be hard conversations," he says. "I just say they just need to be real ones. You're just breaking down the emotional barriers to really just talk to somebody and relate about something that's real and affecting people's lives."

On Saturday, May 4, Call To Mind — along with The Current's Andrea Swensson — is hosting an event, Call To Mind Live, at Bauhaus Brew Labs in Northeast Minneapolis. "We've got P.O.S coming, we have Lydia Liza playing, and we've got Tesfa Wondemagegnehu who's going to be there," Choo explains. "It's going to be kind of a music-and-mental-health-reality-check fest; like, we're just going to be talking about what the musicians are dealing with, how they cope, how they deal with their everyday lives along with the cool music that they do."

This event is free and open to all ages. More information about Call To Mind Live can be found in The Current's Event Calendar.