JUDGE YELLS AT JA RULE FOR SKIPPING COURT: Rapper got a scolding Wednesday by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice

A Manhattan judge gave Ja Rule a stern talkin' to Wednesday after he missed a court date in April because he was on tour.

The rapper, born Jeff Atkins, was due in court on gun possession charges stemming from a traffic stop last summer. But, he failed to appear because he was busy performing at a concert in Germany. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Micki Scherer didn't care.

"There was no excuse in my view for your absence [last month]," she told the entertainer, according to the New York Daily News.

Scherer said Ja Rule must give the court five days' notice of any business trips that will take him out of the metropolitan area. Ja Rule's lawyer Stacey Richman said the German tour dates were booked by mistake.

Ja Rule, his road manager, Dennis Cherry, and his driver, Mohamed Gamal, were charged with gun possession after police stopped their car on the upper West Side and searched it because, they said, they smelled marijuana. No one was charged with possession of drugs.