Advice to EVERYONE.
The music game is changing rapidly. Take advantage of the 'lazy state" it currently sits in. Make a song, not an album, not a mixtape, but a well mixed, arranged, and performed SONG. Put it on itunes, then shoot a vid for it and do everything you can to make that 1 song appear everywhere. Dump it in DJ pools, DJs don't get as many records these days, so they're more likely to play it if it's good. Get it on spotify and beg people to just play it, don't even have to buy it, enough plays and it will rotate into lists. Make it downloadable from a fileshare link so when people hear it, go to itunes, but don't wanna pay 99 cents they can still get it. You want everyone in the world to be playing this one song. Then you start doing shows where you can charge a little bit because you have a song everyone knows.
A "mixtape" has never been able to do that. Albums don't do that without the song in question appearing on them.
These days, "success" is a flash in the pan. Get that 1st, then figure out a next move, but any/everybody can have 1 hot song and reap benefits. Sounds crazy, but it's too easy to do to pass up if you want to make a career out of performing.
Same time...this info doesn't help producers much, unless you can create buzz for multiple artists recording over tracks of yours.