Although the importance of African music has always been recognised, the number of ethnographically oriented popular music studies has remained quite modest on this continent. For this reason, the contribution applies ethnographic directives by Frith (2003) and Marcus (1998) in conducting a case study on the adoption of Rastafari and reggae in the local context of Burkina Faso. Stimulus interviews and group discussions are used to focus on topics such as the social cohesion and cultural practices of Rastas. With respect to the worldwide spread of Jamaican Rastafari culture and the Afrocentric discourse of its adherents (Hall 1990), the goal of these methods was firstly to discover patterns of identity and sociability, and secondly to use these results for a localisation of the Burkinabe Rasta culture, within the framework of the globalised movement.
