No Looking Back

No Looking Back

From Black Magic Woman with Mundanara Bayles by Mundanara Bayles

May 20, 2026 · 28 min · Season 2 · Episode 8

About this episode

Dylan Voller shares his experiences growing up in a youth detention system and his journey of resilience and healing through music and advocacy.

Dylan Voller is a Ngarrindjeri man, hip hop artist, and advocate from Alice Springs, now based in Sydney. In 2016, footage of Dylan as a seventeen year old, hooded and strapped to a restraint chair inside the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, aired on the ABC's Four Corners program, went around the world, and sparked a Royal Commission into the protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory. But Dylan is more than that footage, and this yarn is proof. I sat down with Dylan for an honest, unfiltered conversation about growing up fast, what it meant to be a young blakfulla inside a system built to punish rather than protect, and what it has taken to rebuild a life on his own terms. Dylan talks about his big sister, the first person who truly believed in him. He talks about music as survival, writing poems inside and watching them find their way into the published anthology Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today alongside Archie Roach and some of this country's most powerful Aboriginal voices. He talks about the grassroots work nobody claps for, the burnout of being pushed before you're ready, the slow and hard road of healing from trauma, and the young ones…

People in this episode

Host: Mundanara Bayles

Guest: Dylan Voller

Topics covered

  • resilience
  • family
  • music
  • trauma
  • advocacy
  • youth detention
  • Aboriginal voices

Keywords

  • Dylan Voller
  • youth detention
  • resilience
  • Aboriginal
  • music
  • trauma
  • advocacy
  • Fire Front

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: ABC

Books & works: Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today

Places: Alice Springs, Sydney

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