Why does Crunk Sauna beat Hyphy Sauna?

Introduction:

Summer vacation is a good time to do things you normally couldn’t find time for. Like homemade scientific tests. A few weeks ago we (Henny & Alppiboy) headed for a summer cottage for some R&R. One common theme in our late night discussions was the musical differences between hyphy and crunk. We analyzed the drum patterns, sounds, lyrics etc. in great detail but came to no clear conclusion that night.

However, the next morning we discovered a hidden soundsystem in the sauna. There, under the wooden benches was a nice 70’s style speaker connected to the 80’s era stereo rack in the other room. And we could easily plug our IRiver H320 MP3 player to the system. It was all mono, but bwoy it was loud! And there we had it: a place to empirically test hyphy and crunk material in the most unexpected environment – finnish lakeside sauna soundsystem. We were soooo hyped.

Thesis:

Our thesis was that the sauna bathing experience should be the same whether Hyphy or Crunk music was played during the bathing session.

The method:

The first test night was for crunk and second for hyphy. Both nights we used dry birch logs (approx. 30-40 cm in length and 15 cm in diameter) to warm up the “lab” to somewhere around 70-80 degrees Celsius (accurate measurements are not available, it could’ve been hotter at times, we were too stoked to write any details down during the tests). On crunk nite we played artists like Ludacris, Mike Jones, Trillville, Lil Jon, T.I., Bone Crusher and Three 6 Mafia and on hyphy nite it was strictly artists like E-40, The Federation, Keak The Sneak to name a few. Some amounts of refreshing beverages were also consumed during the test to prevent hydration.

Results:

Here are the results for the Crunk nite:

* the session took a lot longer than usually. Normally a 30 minute session turned into a 2 hour spectacle
* the sounds were clear and fat during the whole session
* we especially loved the overall kick sounds, they resonated quite nicely
* all artists suited the sauna environment well, highlights were T.I. and Paul Wall
* the louder the music was, better the sauna felt
* crunk seemed to fit the moist and hot environment better than expected
* 94 points out of 99 points on the SSE-scale (Subjective Sauna Experience)

And for the Hyphy nite:

* the session took no longer than usually (app. 30 minutes only)
* we had to take a break during the first 5 minutes, because the sauna got too dry
* found some hyphy songs not at all suitable for sauna (e.g. Tell Me When To Go by E-40 is a banger outside the sauna, inside it can really hurt you)
* we also felt anxiety and stress when the volume was set too high, probably because on some songs the 808 cowbells were mixed too loud
* there was a big difference between this and the previous night
* the overall experience was still slightly positive
65 points on the SSE-scale

Conclusion:

We proved out thesis to be incorrect. Crunk is a far better choice for Sauna Soundtracks than Hyphy – reasons for this are however still a bit unclear. Our test were however not identical, our state of mind was a bit better on the first night, which might have had an effect on the results.

Therefore we strongly encourage you to do your own tests and report your results here. And put your Sauna shades on!