Khamlia exists, in the minds of many travellers who make the detour from Merzouga, almost entirely because of its Gnawa musicians. The village's residents are of sub-Saharan descent, and the musical tradition they have maintained here is one of the most intact in Morocco. The core instruments are the guembri — a three-string bass lute with a body made from a camel-skin resonator — and the krakeb, heavy iron castanets that drive the rhythm at a volume that surprises first-time listeners.
If you arrive unannounced you may hear music drifting from one of the village's small performance spaces; if you are staying overnight, ask your host to arrange an evening session. The music is not a performance put on for tourists so much as a living practice — the musicians here play for each other and for ceremony as much as for visitors. Sitting close in a low-ceilinged room while the guembri's bass throb fills the air and the krakeb lock into a syncopated clatter is a genuinely different experience from the polished Gnawa shows staged in Fez or Marrakech.