For 20 years, Elliott Skinner has been building something. You just might not have known his name yet.

If you’ve caught a set by Jon Batiste, Leon Bridges, Chance the Rapper or Amos Lee over the last decade, there’s a decent chance Skinner was somewhere in the mix — playing bass, layering harmonies, holding down the parts that make a song breathe. The Plano-raised, Booker T. Washington alum spent his twenties as one of music’s most reliable collaborators. Now, with his debut solo EP “How Far We’ve Come” out via Ninja Tune, he’s stepping to the front of the stage and, fittingly, opening the record with a track called “An Introduction.”

It’s a wise choice, and a patient one. Six songs, roughly 20 minutes and no filler. The EP arrives two decades after Skinner wrote his first song — proof that some artists ripen rather than rush.

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That ripening started here at home. When we rang Skinner up mid-tour, he was quick to credit North Texas for the artist he has become.

“I always talk about being grateful that I’m from Texas, because when I think about genre, I think about culture,” he told us. “There’s such a well of great artists and a great history of artists from Texas, and specifically from Dallas as well.”

His musical education began in church — choir, then praise and worship, then leading worship — before Booker T. cracked something open.

“It was this moment of being surrounded by other young people making art who wanted to be artists,” he said, laughing about wearing “maybe one too many vests” as he figured out who he was. “That sort of freedom to discover ourselves… I think it’s so important.”

You can hear all of it on the EP. The southern fingerpicking style he absorbed growing up runs through every guitar line. And those 18 years of choir? They didn’t go anywhere. Skinner describes his approach as “guitar orchestration,” stacking layers the way a choir director stacks voices — different figures moving through each piece like sections of a much larger ensemble.

The sound of being held

“How Far We’ve Come” opens with birdsong and footsteps, a deep-D-string acoustic guitar rolling in beneath a choir of welcoming, gorgeously off-kilter “oohs” and “aahs.” It gathers into something more contemporary for the kind of sonic real estate Frank Ocean tends to own. That in-between space is exactly where Skinner wants you.

“I always like to play with the external versus the internal,” he explained. “There’s this sonic space that sits right between — when you’re listening to it, it feels like you’re in this huge room, or it feels like a space inside your head, like an infinite space.”

His vocal production chases a specific feeling, one that feels familiar and new at the same time.

“I want this to feel like someone hugging you and whispering in your ear, a reminder that you need it,” he said.

Meanwhile, “DON’T BE A RUNNER” shifts the EP’s mood entirely. Though not lyrically dense, the kind of groove you throw on while the coffee brews and the day organizes itself around you. “Time never lasted/Struggle don’t last always,” he sings.

Then comes the heart of the EP. “What Kind of Friend Am I” plays like a poem set to music with slowly plucked strings and keyboard notes broken by small, deliberate disruptions — an off note here, an abrupt turn there, even the sounds of a baby drifting through the arrangement. He sings, “What kind of friend am I to leave your side?” It’s an aching question, and Skinner refuses to smooth it over. He keeps you leaned in.

Cool isn’t the same as true

That instinct — trusting the moment over perfected polish — is central to how Skinner works. He told us he tries to build each song around what it actually needs, not around what might sound impressive.

“I’ve been in that space where you’re focused on trying to make things sound catchy or cool,” he admitted. “And you can get to a point where, yeah, it sounds cool, but what does it mean? What is this for?”

His safeguard is a kind of monastic separation.

“The creation of the work has to be completely separate from any idea of success or industry or accolade or acceptance,” he said. “The process of making the music has to be a pure need for release, a need for expression, a need for community and collaboration.”

“Carols of My Mind,” the EP’s focus track featuring Victoria Canal and Radamiz, is the most experimental moment here — spacious, searching, questions stacked on questions. It’s the sound of a mind picking itself apart in the most beautiful way possible.

“THAT KID,” featuring Jensen McRae, is the big vocal showcase on the project. Their voices travel from Tracy Chapman warmth into something rawer and reachier, closer to The Tallest Man on Earth. Skinner and McRae wrote and recorded the vocals in a hotel room while on tour with Amos Lee, and they left them exactly as they landed.

“That song is about intimacy and learning and process,” Skinner said. “The moment we were in was the best delivery of those words.”

That in-the-moment approach translates well, as lyrics like“So nice to see your face again” land like a memory you didn’t know you’d been missing.

The set closes with “Carry the Devil’s Side,” which bounces and trucks along with the buoyant energy of Bombay Bicycle Club or Vampire Weekend before dissolving, in its final 30 seconds, into stripped-down poetry. You can hear the influences, and then you hear Skinner bend them into his own creature entirely, beauty wrestling with ambition.

Come home soon

For Skinner, all of it circles back to a single purpose. 

“Music has been such a tool for me to understand myself and to understand other people,” he said. “I have to keep doing it to stay connected — to myself, to community, to reason.”

He’s currently crisscrossing North America opening for French singer-songwriter anaiis. There are no Dallas dates on the books just yet — but when we mentioned it, his answer was immediate: “I’d love to play in Dallas soon.”

Although he currently calls Denmark home these days, the city that shaped him will be waiting. Look how far he’s come.

“How Far We’ve Come” is now available to stream on all music platforms.