Yusef Wallace’s entry point into the JDM scene formed early, shaped less by aspiration rather than continual exposure. Wallace recalls the influence of his father’s air–cooled Volkswagen and the stacks of automotive magazines he was given, which shaped his taste page by page and formed the basis of his education long before drifting became a symbol of status or fantasy. Since the early 2000s, Wallace has been a key figure in the drift scene, informed by his drift community in the Bay Area and by periods of distance tied to his parallel career as the frontman of the death metal band Rude.
This early exposure and sustained involvement in the scene motivated Wallace to restart the era–defining brand Thrash, which he notes “existed before him,” as a continuation of a long–standing legacy of patterned racing seats that influenced drift culture from the 1990s onward. Dormant since the 2010s following the death of its original owner, Thrash was methodically rebuilt by Wallace after securing the family’s agreement—having himself owned an original seat from 2005. Beginning with original seats, tracing production histories, and locating factories that no longer existed, Thrash was revived not out of a nostalgic impulse, but as a way of keeping the culture’s history alive.
Alongside his continued involvement in drifting, approached with a critical lens, Wallace leads Rude, extending a musical practice that began in his teenage years when he first picked up the guitar. Over time, Rude refined its identity through releases and international touring, often coinciding with periods when Wallace stepped back from the drift scene.
Today, Yusef Wallace lives in Osaka, Japan, where he runs and operates Thrash Racing while intermittently returning to the United States for Rude and for import–export work tied to the JDM ecosystem. He drives an S13 Nissan Silvia built to remain faithful to the original drifting style he first fell in love with.
BADSEKI: You’ve now been in the scene since the early 2000s. What was the starting point of your interest in drifting, and how did it lead you to reviving Thrash?
YUSEF WALLACE: When I started, I was mostly into skateboarding. You know, when you’re a teenager, you’re drawn to rebellious things – there are no rules. I would skate with my friends, do tricks, and we would just laugh and talk together. Whether you were good or bad, everyone had their own style. It was real expression. Then, when I turned 14 or 15, I started to realize that I would be driving soon. I didn’t really know which car to get, and I wasn’t one of those kids with Lamborghini posters on their wall. I didn’t care about cars back then, and I still don’t care about those kinds of cars at all.
I asked my dad about it and mentioned that I should be getting a car soon. He went down to the basement and grabbed a stack of magazines, VW and Porsche magazines. We had a Volkswagen, so that was his thing. In the stack, there was a 1998 issue of Super Street; the cover was an S14 Kouki. As I was flipping through the pages, I saw a small section called “Right Hand Rides” with a few cars from Japan. There was the latest EK9 Civic Type R, for instance, and they were interviewing the owners.
Badseki: What stood out specifically about this section?
YW: There was a Nissan 180SX, and I remember the bumper was wrecked. It made me wonder what was happening there, every other car was flawless, not a fingerprint on them. But this one was clearly beat on. Then there were two brothers with an FD and a Mazda FC RX–7, both with R–Magic kits. It was strange because they felt real, not like show cars.
One of the cars had a URL sticker linking to a blog called Crazy Max. I think it was one of the most important websites documenting Japanese drifting. You could find videos of street drifting at ports like Namco, for instance, but this team had their own website with a blog where they documented everything. It was 2001, the internet wasn’t what it is now, but I would let all the pictures load. I didn’t really know much at the time, but I remember thinking these cars were extremely cool. Back to expression, in a way, everyone’s car was different and reflected their own style or mannerisms. It was hard to program a website back then; they were fully committed.
Badseki: Is that when Japanese drifting really clicked for you? Did you start attending events after that?
YW: Yes. I didn’t really know what the cars were back then, I just knew they were cool, and all of them were different. I showed my best friend, and he started researching, talking about the difference between a Corolla GT–S and a Nissan 240. We got into it together. Then drifting.com came out, followed by Zilvia. Super Street and the other blogs or magazines didn’t really cover modified cars.
In March 2003, I went to my first drift event, Drift Showoff at Irwindale Speedway. It was held in the parking lot, and Atsushi Kuroi and the red Falken 180SX were there, along with Seigo Yamamoto, even though he wasn’t a major D1 driver, and Fumiaki Komatsu, Drifter X, who used to work at Signal.
It wasn’t an “organized” event. People were doing burnouts in the pits, and the competition aspect was anecdotal. What was fun was the free driving, guys following each other and drawing their own lines. It felt like skating, you know, you ride what feels right. That event sealed it for me. I told myself: I want to do this; I want to be part of this.
Badseki: What was your first car then? And how was the community back then?
YW: I drove an RX–7 FC Turbo II. I graduated high school at 16, and I knew I wanted to learn Japanese and learn how to work on cars. I took my GED at 16 and was allowed to attend community college for half a day. In the meantime, I started using Photoshop and working on band visuals.
The community back then, at least mine, included my friend Aaron, who runs Pandora Motorsports in Oakland. He drove an A70 Supra. People were driving the cars they wanted, and they were just drifting the course, no backies or anything like that. That’s why I always preferred a show line to a race line: it’s fun, it looks cool, and it gets people excited. I remember Koguchi telling me one day, “Don’t worry about doing good. Go have fun,” because drifting is supposed to be fun.
Another positive aspect was that there were no fake parts or cheap knockoffs. You went on eBay, Craigslist, or Zilvia, and everything was original. There was also J–Spec.com—we’d come back from school and refresh the page to see what was new. That was always exciting. In my early drifting days, I was completely obsessed with it.
Badseki: How did this lead you to moving to Japan and settling in Osaka?
YW: That’s a long story. To keep it short, when I was 16, I started working at a family–run restaurant that had been around since the 1950s. It wasn’t a fast–food chain, it was very family–oriented, so we held car meets in the parking lot.
I worked there for 12 years. If there’s one thing I’d tell the new generation, it’s that you don’t need to make it tomorrow. You can work and pursue your hobbies on the side, you have to enjoy the process. It was the oldest restaurant in Berkeley, and eventually the owner was ready to retire and close at the end of the year. At that time, I was making a lot of music, but I knew it wouldn’t pay the bills. I needed to figure something out.
I went on Craigslist and saw a Trueno for sale in the U.S. I wanted to understand how it had been imported. Cars were fully built and selling for $1,500, and I wanted to start importing. There was the 25–year import rule.
It was January 2015. I had some savings and was looking for cars to import to make some money. In April, I went to Tokyo for my birthday and took a train to Nagoya to meet with an exporter and see the cars in person. I paid a deposit, but the company was not very reliable. I came back in June, and one of my friends had started a used car dealership, so we went to Nagoya together to buy cars. We then traveled to Osaka to visit Stacked. They were dealing with parts as well as imports, so I offered my help. I wanted to stay in Japan, but the visa situation was difficult. I later received a message from Stacked – the one person who spoke English had just left, and they asked if I wanted to come and help. I left in October on a three–month tourist visa and eventually found a way to stay. There was then a break when I shifted my focus back to music and my band.
Badseki: When did you get back into drifting, and what motivated you to restart Thrash Racing?
YW: Since I did not have a work visa, I lived between the U.S. and Japan. I would stay three months in Japan, then return for one or two months. While in Japan, I worked on cars and helped friends with photography, categorization, and their websites, then I would leave. When I was in the U.S., I read, wrote, and played music. I started writing my own music around 2014, so some of the songs from the first album date back to that time. We toured in the U.S. and Canada and played in five or six countries in Europe – our label is based in Germany. I also participated in events in the U.S., for instance in 2017 with Julian Jacobs, when we invited Naoki Nakamura.
Thrash came into my life around that time. We were in 2017, and I was trying to understand what had happened to the brand. I came across their Facebook page, which had not been updated since 2015. When I searched the company name on Google, I found several court cases from 2014. I did extensive research, asking around for updates, news, and contacts. My friend Fukuda mentioned that the original owner had passed away. I wanted to return to Japan but do something meaningful. I managed to find the late owner’s wife and reached out to her. For months, she did not reply. During that time, I kept working on my plan and tried to obtain an original seat so I could create a copy and have something tangible to show.
Badseki: How was the process, especially since you could not access Thrash’s original owners?
YW: It was a difficult process, but I believed it could work. I searched for the original factory, which was based in Taiwan. I found its location on Google Street View – there was still fabric visible everywhere. I emailed them, but the email address was no longer active, so I found another factory that agreed to produce the seats. Throughout this process, I still did not have permission, but a close Japanese friend I met during community college encouraged me to go for it. I started working on samples, and then one day, out of nowhere, I received a reply. My friend helped me respond. I asked for her blessing to restart the company and sent her photos of the samples.
She told me her husband would have been very happy to see Thrash revived. She was still receiving requests for her own seat, as there were very few left. I promised her I would not let her down, and that is how it all started.
I produced black, yellow, red, blue, pink, as well as jaguar and zebra versions of the seats and began selling them. I was fortunate that my friends offered their support. When I first posted on Instagram, people thought it was fake. Now it is clear that it is real and closely connected to the original owners and the Japanese drivers who were involved long before we began. I am extremely grateful for their support and trust – they could have said no from the beginning.
What motivates me is the community and the history of the culture. Many early D1 drivers are no longer remembered. For me and the older generation, they are legends. I feel uncomfortable seeing drivers flown around the world while these figures are forgotten. They created the style. They designed the aero kits. They established the wheel and paint combinations. We need to know where we come from.
Badseki: You mentioned that there is no urge to “make it.” What would you tell the new generation getting into drifting?
YW: It depends on who we are talking about. I know younger people might see this as a boomer perspective, but if they were physically in Japan, I would hand them some of my magazines, buy them a DVD player, and tell them to put their phone down and watch. If it makes them feel something, they can continue. If not, then it is simply not for them, and that is fine. I think it is essential to understand where and when it started.
I feel the same way about music. I like early death metal bands – they were not tuning down much and were playing heavier thrash metal. It felt different, new, and unconventional, in the same way drifting once did. It is important to start at the beginning, learn about the OGs, understand their progression, and choose where you want to situate yourself in the timeline. People can do whatever they want, but for me it comes down to watching, listening, learning, and asking questions.
Badseki: Aside from Thrash, you’re also the front man of death metal band Rude. How does your band connect to drifting?
YW: I have liked death metal since sixth grade. It worried my parents because this was 1998 and it was death metal. The genre was in decline at the time, but the lyrics and atmosphere were still intense and unsettling for parents.
In 2007, I stepped away from racing and drifting. The first Formula D event at Infineon Raceway was a turning point for me. I had watched countless Drift Tengoku and Option videos, as well as random clips online of amateurs funding their own cars. When drifting turned into a competition driven by sponsorships and name recognition, it no longer felt authentic. It became gimmicky, focused on money and image rather than driving, and I wanted out.
When I started playing music, I bought a guitar and learned the melodic patterns used in death metal. I had never played before, but I believed that if others could do it, I could too – the same approach I had with drifting. I learned how to hold a pick, how to strum, and where to place my fingers. Around the same time, a friend I had known since middle school, who had also gotten into drifting with me, was already a drummer and a very good one. He introduced me to a lot of death metal. At that time, I was still skating, drifting, and doing everything. I even crashed into a house trying to show off. With another friend who played bass, we started playing together. We rehearsed and played shows, and it felt fresh – we did not have to play perfectly.
Badseki: Were music and drifting separate for you when you started your band?
YW: In 2000, with Rude, we put out a demo and went through lineup changes. I joined another band, but my riffs were not being used, so I started Rude again with new members and recorded a tape in 2012. I offered tapes to metalheads who followed our Facebook page until it reached our current record label. They wanted to sign us.
We recorded our first album in 2013 and toured in the U.S. By 2014, our first album, Soul Recall, was released. The cover was created by Dan Seagrave, a legendary metal artist who worked with major death metal bands in 1988, 1989, and 1990. Once again, I took a chance and messaged him to see if he was still active, and it worked. We recorded our second album in 2016. The audience was anticipating it, and it sold out quickly. It is called Remnants, and Dan Seagrave also designed the cover.
If I had to describe the relationship between music and drifting, I would say it moves in waves. Like life, things shift and fluctuate. They are not separate, but their intensity changes over time. In both music and drifting, if I had one thing to say, it would be this: immerse yourself in the environment, learn the history of the culture, think before asking questions, and spend time around people. It is supposed to be fun.
BADSEKI Vol.0
All images shot by Rayan Nohra
Interviewer: Chris Rosales
Editor: Cyana–Djoher Hadjali
