Not sure when I first heard Nas, but it absolutely was because of my older brother and it was either IF I RULED THE WORLD or STREET DREAMS.
I was around 10 years old when IWW dropped and my bro was just recording YO MTV RAPS and replaying the Nas videos over and over. I remember him getting the album too.
I AM Is when I consciously sat down to listen to the album, I fukking loved IWW so I AM was a bit too different for me at first but I asked my bro which songs were playing in the intro and he was like "
that's Illmatic I've been playing that around you". Thing is I didn't realize (11/12 years old) that Illmatic and IWW were both by Nas
Pac was still my GOAT for quite some time but Nas was easily my second favorite, I think I really GOATed him after Gods Son - to me that's the album where he gave me the same feels (pause) that Pac gave me. And he been proving his GOATness ever since.
Nas
Pac
Prodigy
Cube
Gza
That's been my top 5 since like 11 years old, Nas and Pac just switched spots at some point.