Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US black) anything one needs (fancy clothes, a clever line of patter, a personal style, a mental attitude) for the successful promotion of one’s schemes; thus styler n., a person preoccupied with appearance.

1888		‘Phin’ (Ernest Thayer) ‘Casey at the Bat’ in Dly Examiner (SF) 3 June 10: ‘That [i.e. a pitch] ain’t my style,’ said Casey. ‘Strike one,’ the umpire said.
1910		H. Hapgood Types from City Streets 126: They are not taught but [...] they insensibly learn to put on ‘front’ and ‘style’.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 5 June 4/3: T.F. don’t stick on so much style when you are out .
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 242: The cops came to question me. (They had come before, but I had been too doped up to dig their style.).
1979		H. Leonard A Life (1981) Act I: The style of her.
1982		Beano 13 Nov. 13: I like your style, kid – could use you.
1986		R. Hewitt White Talk Black Talk 100: In the 1970s the prevailing Jamaican ‘rude boy’ culture gave way to Rasta influence and to the ‘stylers’, whose interest in appearance could not be identified with Rasta other-worldliness.
1998		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 9: stilo – style: ‘Don’t try to copy my stilo because it’s too original.’ Spanish popularized by rap lyrics.
1999		Guardian Guide 29 May–4 June 52: Yup, say what you will about the Wilk dog, the cat had style.
2005		W.D. Myers Autobiog. of My Dead Brother 164: I didn’t want to show lame all the time, but I didn’t know what style I should be wearing.

2. (S.Afr.) a form of dance music.

1948

in H. Tracey Lalela Zulu xi: The English word ‘style’ is used by Zulus to indicate a new craze. [Ibid.] 56: Hurry boy and play a ‘style’ [...] In Matabele [...] they call an imitation of a European tune a ‘style’.