Willowwilde Wellness has come for the party rockers. Or at least the (gracefully) aging ones.
On Thursday, none other than Lil Jon of “Get Low” and “Shots” fame DJed…a Peloton class. He surprised attendees at the Peloton Studios pre-party for Alex Toussaint’s Club Bangers ride on June 27, and stuck around to live DJ the class while also shouting plenty of “Yeahs!” and “Okays!” to in-person and virtual riders.
During “Shots,” Peloton teachers Camila Ramón and Ash Pryor emerged like bottle service girls with glow sticks and shots (of water) while Toussaint talked about the importance of hydration and Lil Jon, of course, yelled “Shots!”
“He ad-libbed away,” says regular Peloton rider Emily who took the class virtually (and preferred not to provide her last name). “He seemed to be having a great time. He was going for it.”
Lil Jon also co-led a meditation on Peloton with instructor Chelsea Jackson Roberts. Wellness has become a fixture in the rapper’s life: He regularly meditates, has a wellness brand called Soul Chakra that sells apparel, crystals, and gear like yoga mats, and even released a meditation album.
“I don’t just walk around screaming “Yeah! What? Okay!” all day, every day,” Lil Jon told NPR in March. “You gotta turn down sometimes. You gotta get rest. You gotta get sleep. You gotta drink a lot of water! You gotta take care of your health.”
Lil Jon’s class is delighting the Peloton community. It turns out Lil Jon’s catalog is full of great songs to spin to. Most importantly, who wouldn’t want the world’s number one hype man literally hyping you up while you ride?
“I’d recommend the class to anyone who used to ‘get low,’ but now their knees crack,” Emily says.
Lil Jon is not the only legendary 2000s party fixture to trade (or at least supplement) getting high for an endorphin high. Diplo created a 5K series called Diplo’s Run Club, and the DJ shows up for runs himself. Barry’s is the “official cross-training partner” of the run club, and Diplo even recently took, you guessed it, a Diplo-themed Barry’s class at the studio’s new Santa Monica location (his shirt did not stay on for long).
Meanwhile, bad boy of the slopes Shaun White—previously known for his debauchery as well as his many Olympic medals—hosted a “Relaxathon” competition in Aruba, where beach goers competed to see who could stay in a calm meditative state the longest. “Inner peace will be pushed to its very limit,” White says in a Relaxathon promo.
Jay-Z, true to his businessman/business, man identity, is an investor in multiple fitness and wellness companies, including CLMBR, LIT Method, and Therabody. And Lil Jon’s “Gasolina” co-star Pitbull has his own fitness class partnership with spinning platform Echelon. Dale!
For millennials in our *shudders* middle age, it’s nice to see that the people who helped us turn up for the parties of the 2000s are riding a wellness journey right along with the rest of us. Late nights? Out. Early A.M. strolls through the farmer’s market? In.
“I’ve gone from dancing on tables to spin classes,” Emily says. “But so has Lil Jon.”
