A regional daily reporter has revealed how a legendary American rapper, who has sung with the likes of Mariah Carey and The Pussycat Dolls, experienced a life-changing ‘culture shock’ when he visited her title’s patch as a child.

Lancashire Post journalist Catherine Musgrove told the story of how an 11-year-old Busta Rhymes – real name Trevor George Smith Jr – would be sent over to North West England to visit family.

The native New Yorker, who had been talking to BBC 1Extra’s breakfast show spoke of ‘a culture shock for me in an incredible way’ after arriving in Blackpool.

Among other things, he revealed that had never experienced inter-racial relationships until coming to the North West.

How the Lancashire Post covered the story on US rapper Busta Rhymes.

The online report from Catherine reveals that as a child, Rhymes’ mum would send him and his younger brother to see family members living abroad ‘so we wouldn’t [be] in the hood finding mischief in Brooklyn’.

In the early 80s he spent two summers living with his aunt in Morecambe and attended Skerton Community High School while he was staying in the area, as well as a local karate group.

Quoted in the story, the 51-year-old rapper said: “I learned how to smoke cigarettes here, I learned about interracial relationships here.

“Yeah, I’d never seen a white and a black person go together until I came here… When I was 11-years-old, that’s the first time I saw that in my life… In Lancashire, in Morecambe, in Preston, in Blackpool.

“Yo, it was a culture shock for me, in an incredible way”.

Catherine also revealed in her piece how people listening to the original interview had remarked on social media that the rapper was even pronouncing the names with a Lancashire accent.