Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a street gang member.

1991		L. Bing Do or Die (1992) 216: I asked a little male lok about that.
1996		Snoop Doggy Dogg ‘2001’ 🎵 Once upon a time in the land of the locs / where it’s all about dope and pistol smoke.
2001		(con. 1990s) in J. Miller One of the Guys 96: ‘Twelve-, fourteen- [year-olds] are little locs [...] Little kids like about eleven [...] we call them shorties’ .
2001		(con. 1990s) in J. Miller One of the Guys 97: ‘The little locs, they young and they got the energy to burn...We do stuff too, but as much as the little locs’ .

2. a friend.

2000

in W. Shaw Westsiders 309: God please ease my pain, I’m really missin’ my locs.

3. a general term of address.

1991		L. Bing Do or Die (1992) 61: One of my homies say, ‘I gotta idea, Cuz,’ and I say, ‘What’s that, loc?’.
1993		Dr Dre ‘Fuck Wit Dre Day’ 🎵 And watch your back cause you might get smoked, loc.