Music is a big part of any Peloton workout, but Kanye West, now legally known as Ye, won’t be. Over the past few days, Peloton has removed hundreds of classes from its on-demand library featuring Ye’s music.
In late October, Peloton began telling members that Ye’s music would no longer appear in new classes following the rapper’s antisemitic comments. However, previously filmed classes were left alone. Now it appears Ye’s presence has been entirely scrubbed from the platform.
The classes first began disappearing on December 6th, according to unofficial Peloton fan site Pelo Buddy. The Verge also confirmed that searching for “Kanye West” or “Ye” no longer shows results on our Peloton Row review unit or on Peloton’s desktop site. The purge impacts classes across various activities, including cycling, tread, bootcamp, yoga, and strength. It’s unclear whether the classes have been deleted entirely or are just no longer searchable by users. The Verge reached out to Peloton for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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The situation underscores how music can make or break a connected fitness service. While Ye is a single artist, he’s a popular fixture in hip-hop fitness playlists. Before the purge, CNN reported that Peloton had roughly 1,800 classes featuring Ye in its library. While Peloton will be just fine axing close to 2,000 classes, the same can’t be said of every other connected fitness platform. Case in point, Ye’s music still appears in Apple Fitness Plus playlists on Apple Music. While this may be a minor issue, for now, it’s a reminder that connected fitness companies aren’t just hardware makers — they’re entertainment companies, too.
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