Baltimore’s John Wells Effortlessly Transcends Rap Eras and Raw Emotion with Part 2 of his ‘I don’t wanna die’ Series
Evan Dale | April 10, 2026
John Wells
An uplifting melancholia underlines much of the rapped aesthetic that John Wells has been curating for years. His studied, thoughtful lyricism tends towards the profound and the personal, opting for first-person observations over grandiose world-building, the honesty of lived experiences rather than the braggadocio that shallows the could-be depth of modern hip-hop’s overarching state. His beatscape is defined in much the same way, brimming with layers of understated samples and organic instrumentation that wring nostalgia for hip-hop’s past out of each track. His is a timeless kind of sound, the type that could seamlessly place him in a mosaic of different epochs and eras. And yet, by the universe’s divine happenstance, the Baltimore rapper finds himself in our modern moment, and his most recent project, I don’t wanna die (Pt. 2) is an immersive dive into the calm, cool, collected mind and sound of an artist grappling truthfully with life, but happy to be along for the ride all the same.
Gentle piano chords guide a listener into its opening track, I prolly got time. Once inside, it doesn’t take long for John Wells’s metronomic flow to fold himself along with his listeners into his flow state. A dynamic verse effortlessly bleeds into an ever slightly more melodic chorus while the piano riff churns on in the background. For two minutes, we’re all lullabied by his mellow, yet simultaneously stimulated by his robust poeticism, until the track finally fades out.
‘Cause I’m just trying to be that person that you can depend, but I gotta be there for myself ‘cause I don’t wanna die.’
This the second iteration of a series built upon the same name is progressing skyward on the foundation of Part 1 released late September of last year. The two coalesce musically and thematically in a way that they can be played one after the other without really noticing that they aren’t in fact just one project. More of a delayed release A-Side / B-Side, the projects stand in confluence more in the lineage of Wells’s full-length catalogue dating back to his breakout 2022 album, The Apprehension of John Wells, than they do his prolific string of EP’s and mixtapes, like 2024’s collaborative joint with producer, Elijah Who, That Much Bread on Me. With his longer, solo explorations, Wells has a knack for delving into emotionality connecting deeply to his listeners, and I don’t wanna die is no exception.
As Part 2 pushes forward, Wells never loses his footing. At tracks like I saw my dog die, his seamless transcendence from effortless raps to head-nodding hooks allows his sound to bridge the experience of the listeners between the conscious and the subconscious. Consciously, Wells’s music is grounded in the art of pure storytelling and raw rap ability, so when listening closely, there’s always something new to latch onto. Subconsciously, his delivery meanders at such nonchalant pacing and understated effort, that it can soundtrack a listeners movement when they’re not taking in every rhyme. Such can be said about the whole project.
Where his sound does deviate from its signature trance, Wells is often accompanied by another artist. Though I don’t know who to trust is built on the same jazzily productive beat, though it’s earmarked by Well’s balance between the hard-nosed truth in his poetry and the mellow demeanor with which he delivers it, and though it’s stamped by another smooth-sailing chorus detailing a heavy admission, the infusion of Shooting Niro changes the equation enough for it to pulsate with a unique energy. The two rapper’s verses play off each other, even as they bleed of a similar cadence and adherence to something inexplicably old-school in their sounds.
At I couldn’t find the sun today, Wells’s signature is again curved slightly by the pen of another lyricist. A little more of a pronounced attack on the beat, he jumps into it with enhanced energy. By the time the chorus elapses and Scotty Banx’s impossibly deep register climbs into frame, the two combine for the hardest-hitting track of the project, albeit still low-key and in tune with its inobtrusive nature at large.
At under 20 minutes, I don’t wanna die (Pt. 2) is far from a marathon, and that’s the way John Wells likes it. At a relaxed pace, his shining talent as a lyricist takes center stage. Overtop timeless beats, his epochally defiant aesthetic feels at home. And combined with Part 1, the project runs like a well-constructed album, best played front to back.