Justin Ashar (J. Ashar), founder of Pug Life Records, is a Canadian-born artist of Indian descent. He gained viral exposure on Facebook in 2016 for trolling on the internet covering famous pop songs using a harmonium (Indian instrument). His most popular cover to date has been of Drake’s “Hotline Bling” with 1.1 million views on Facebook. Since Facebook didn’t have licensing agreements with any global music corporations like Universal Music Group (UMG) or Sony Music Entertainment (SME) at the time, J. Ashar had most of his viral videos taken down due to copyright issues. However, these projects still remain on his YouTube Channel.

By mid-2017, BINA® Musical Stores, known worldwide for their Indian harmoniums, sponsored J. Ashar and designed him a custom instrument for his future projects. In early 2018, Justin started Pug Life Records®, an experimental management, record label, video production, and marketing platform to develop new artists. He saw a lot of talent across the world, but he found many of these artists never had a platform to put out their music. J. Ashar’s concept was to create an artistic collective and community to showcase how when artists work together, they can accomplish big things. He signed Shobhit Banwait, a legendary tabla player from Toronto, Canada, to his label shortly afterwards.

J. Ashar then transformed from an artist to an executive producer. By 2019, Pug Life Records® partnered up with Speed Records®, an Indian music label, to release an official tabla remix to the Doorbeen’s viral hit “Lamberghini.” The music video featured Shobhit Banwait and was uploaded to Speed Records’ YouTube channel with 25-million subscribers.

The idea of the concept started catching on, and more artists started joining the label from across the world. Neil Sethi, also known as AIR APPARENT, a producer based out of San Francisco, California, joined Pug Life Records® and released his EP entitled “Color Dreams” to much success. Within a few weeks, the album was streamed over 100K times on Spotify. Pug Life Records® then partnered with Kung Fu Tea®, a global bubble tea chain, to release AIR APPARENT’s official video for “Sorry.” Justin flew to Los Angeles to oversee the entire operation and even made a cameo appearance in the video with AIR APPARENT where they actually met in person for the first time.