Snupe Daniel, leading Black voice in Austin radio, shares story
AUSTIN, Texas - A leading Black voice in Austin radio shares his story of adoption from the Philippines and why he’s grateful to be one of the only Black men in radio.
A 2020 report from the Radio, Television, Digital News Association finds only 6.8 percent of people in radio news are Black.
Jonathan "Snupe" Daniel is a regular on Good Day Austin, as he chats about high school sports and trending topics.
He also holds down the 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. hours on 104.9 The Horn.
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Snupe is also a household name for anyone who plays Central Texas high school sports via FLX ATX.
What you may not know is that Snupe's story begins more than 8400 miles away in the Philippines.
"I was like naked on a wooden table and I had my bottle next to me and there were ants climbing up and down like a ton of ants on the Similac, like nasty, bad, bad, it was a bad situation," Snupe says, remembering a story his adoptive parents always told him.
He says he was his parent’s second choice for adoption at an orphanage half a world away, but he doesn’t think it’s a bad thing.
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"Thank God I live in America! Like, if I lived over there, I’d probably already be dead because I’m severely allergic to shellfish, they eat a lot of shellfish over there, so who knows I am might not have even have made it past one or two, so yeah I got over here and that’s another reason that I feel very lucky," Snupe says, sharing his story of coming to the U.S.
After his adoption, he says his gratitude for life leads his every move.
"Even like 10 years ago if you would’ve told me what I was doing now god I would’ve been like. ‘ oh my God!’," Snupe says with a huge smile.
Call it God or chance, someone has been looking out for Snupe since the Philippines.
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His radio career started as a janitor at 106.1 KISS FM in Dallas.
"It was actually a janitorial internship, I was there to just clean out the closets, wash the grease out of the garage and so my opportunistic self actually wrote Kidd Kraddick a note and stuck it in his box and said, ‘Hey, I’m Snupe, I’m working out here, but I’m not in programming, if you ever need anything, I’ll be here at four in the morning, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it,’ and then the next day, I had the internship!" Snupe remembers.
He credits the late Dallas radio legend, Kidd Kraddick, for giving him a chance.
"Once I put those headphones on the first time, I was hooked, I was like, ‘I’m doing this for the rest of my life’ like it was a long journey that was '98!" Snupe said.
The rest is history, he found his way to Austin, Texas.
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"I couldn’t get a full-time job in Dallas, you know how it is, it’s super competitive, it’s just hard to get a gig if you don’t have any experience," Snupe says. "So, I had to move to Austin, my first radio gig was at 101X, which was a rock station and me being like the person who always tries to break the mold.... I always just wanted to do a rock radio for whatever reason and that’s the first job I got was 101X and it was awesome I worked in the morning show, I got paid, I worked at Jamba Juice too, I a part-time radio employee but then I got my first sports gig at The Zone,"
Itt was that sports gig that would put Snupe’s life in a different direction.
"We were just covering Westlake and they wanted me to expand a little bit more and I was just like, ‘man I don’t know, can anybody cover all the schools at the same time? This is too much’," Snupe remembers.
It was a challenge Snupe stood up to.
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Today he is the face of high school sports coverage in Central Texas with a team of high school student correspondents at FLX ATX.
"It’s something I discovered by accident and I’m so good at it, you know? Like not in a braggadocio‘s way, but like, how could I not? I mean as I see the reaction and it almost blows me away, like why are kids so interested in my take, in my perspective on high school sports?" Snupe says as he thinks on his journey.
"I love it because it puts everybody on the same level, whether I’m covering Lake Travis or Vandergrift or Georgetown, Cedar Park or if I’m covering LBJ, Manor, it puts everybody in the same grouping regardless of financial status color or success or not success," Snupe says.
Diversity is something important to him, Snupe says he’s one of the few Black men in Austin radio.
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"I really think being Black has helped, my attitude first of all shines over everything else," Snupe says. "I was probably the first interaction with people of color that a lot of those people had and you know, usually people of non-color, usually have their clicks and they grow up and they have stereotypes of other people because they don’t really have daily interactions with anybody outside of people that they look like, so I really feel like it’s a privilege and an honor to do what I do and just kind of give people a new look or maybe even a first look," Snupe says.
It’s a look into the life of this man who lives every moment in gratitude.
"I feel that everything I do, I’ve already won so I just keep going
You can catch Snupe on Good Day Austin for Friday Fox Football, Friday Fox Hoops and also on 104.9 The Horn Monday-Friday at 10:00 a.m. and Thursday nights for FLX ATX at 8:00 p.m.