Funny enough western Africa did have kings that attempted to sail west a good 100 years before Europe but I guess it was still too early.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Muhammad

Also reading his wikipedia page for the first time it’s kinda funny how relevant the only two other mentioned people in the article are.

One of them is Mansa Musa, the legend that donated so much during pilgrimage entire nations collapsed due to sheer inflation.

And the other one is named “Sakura.”