Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. of a person, odd, peculiar, inferior – outside the group or group norm.

1960		E.T. Carpenter Tales Manchaca Hills 109: There was a sprinkling of [...] Cambellites, but these off-brand folk attended our Sunday-school meetings and church services [DARE].
1969		R.L. Keiser Vice Lords 25: This is our territory ‘cause can’t nobody come through—no off-brand clubs. [...] We have mostly all of it up tight.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 93: I think most a them is Communists or some other off brand types.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 42: Like everybody [...] stylin’, and some old off-brand dude come up here like wid a pair of tennis shoes on, levis, and a ruffled-up shirt and everybody got they slack suit on and everything.
1993		Snoop Doggy Dogg ‘Serial Killa’ 🎵 I see some off-brand niggers on the corner flagging me down.
2002		Simon & Burns ‘Old Cases’ Wire ser. 1 ep. 4 [TV script] I’m just too bad for that off-brand little-boy bullshit.

2. (also no-brand) unfashionable, esp. when wearing too many (clashing) colours.

1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 42: Like if he’s wearin’ checkered pants an’ everybody else is wearing flairs, den he be off brand.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 26: P.F. Flyers or some other cheap, off-brand shit. [Ibid.] 209: A small, off-brand town in rural Virginia.
2016		A. Wheatle Crongton Knights 71: Why did he wear such no-brand everything-must-go sale shoes?
2022		I. Fitzgerald Dirtbag, Massachusetts 202: A child with zero dollars [going to] off-brand Supercuts.

3. second-rate.

1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 69: Committin’ any kind of little funny, off-brand crime in order to make sure I had a wake-up shot.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 248: off-brand adj. [...] 2. Inferior (in quality).
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 19: ‘Off-brand, purple-ass dinosaur,’ mutters DeAndre.
2001		G. Pelecanos Right As Rain 86: They’re selling some off-brand, two steps down from cold duck, for fifty dollars a bottle to those poor suckers in here.
2006		Simon & Burns ‘Boys of Summer’ Wire ser. 4 ep. 1 [TV script] What I want with some off-brand hilltop corner?
2021		T. Swerdlow Straight Dope [ebook] A big off-brand flat-screen plays Mexican soccer.