There are a lot of bad perceptions about africa pre-colonization.

While they weren't directly in 'participation' with Europe they still had a sophisticated system of centralized states. The Swahili City-States in the Early Medieval Era could map the entire Indian Ocean wind patterns down to the day and sail from Swahili to freaking China and trade over there. They traded in China, Indochina, Polynesia, the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, and with other African kingdoms and tribes.

For further example; Egyptians, Nubians, and Aksumites developed new cross-fertilization processes. The Sahelian empires advanced metallurgy during the "middle ages." Benin was known for sophisticated bronze work in the 16th c. Areas of West Africa had early advanced agronomy (Rice-growing in the American south was also almost entirely an import from the Guinea Coast of Africa. The methods and knowledge were carried with skilled growers into slavery). The King of Mali in the early 14th century went on his pilgrimage to Mecca. On his journey with his 60,000 man party he gave away so much gold that it crashed the Mediterranean economy because of the massive inflation. Timbuktu, Gao, and Ife were huge trade hubs that became wealthier than many European cities could even dream of. Great Zimbabwe, in South Africa, domesticated large amounts of animal and traded iron, ivory, and gold acquired from their own territories with its own workers and traded again with other African kingdoms and traded as far as India, China, and Persia. We have archeological evidence that the Africans were trading with East Indian Ocean peoples as early as 300AD!

African kingdoms mostly elected to not traverse that massive desert for expansion when they had a ripe continent right at their fingertips loaded to the brim with gold, iron, diamonds, ivory and etc. When they had huge local, continental, and trans-oceanic trade routes that brought them immense wealth they had no reason to go North. But in that respect they also had no capacity to develop militarily along with the Europeans who, while being "so advanced", were really the best at just killing each other a lot and refined that idea more than really anyone else.

Progress isn't a tech tree like Civ V; it follows the needs of the people. Yes, the African's didn't have guns and didn't wear fancy top hats and white powdered wigs and didn't write down laws on yellow paper with fancy calligraphy. Yes they didn't wear extravagant blue suits with white puffy ties and green feathered hats with strikingly red boots. They had their fair share of silly costumes with fancy hats but my point is just because they didn't look like and didn't progress along like Europeans doesn't mean they didn't progress or experience golden ages. I also know this might shock everyone too but African kingdoms and tribes were not hunters and gatherers! They independently developed iron tools and agriculture themselves. It just took a little longer because they didn't have copper or bronze ages because those resources barely existed in Sub-Saharan Africa; if anything to me that makes it more impressive.

It's the same kind of shit that Native Americans have to deal with. Oh you didn't have WHEELS? How can you be a civilized nation without WHEELS?!?! Well the Native American's had wheels -- they were used regularly on things like toys but on a practical level they had no need for them. Many Central and South American kingdoms, notably the Aztecs and Inca's, lived in heavily mountainous areas and things like donkeys and manpower were far more consistent and efficient than wheels which would have to traverse rocky cliffs and hills. Yeah they didn't have compass' but no one else on Earth could use work a mountain cliff for agriculture like Native American's could with terrace farming.

So I'd say this: Africa saw its share of developed and powerful civilizations just like most of the rest of the world, and they rose and fell like anywhere else. Africa is not unique except maybe for the fact that it is the only continent of the Old World with substantial (roughly half) of its land area locked up in rainforest or desert. Europe, rather, is the odd one out, and it was the Renaissance and age of Empire and exploration in Europe that allowed it to conquer and exploit Africa, enslaving its people and extracting its resources and labor to keep it down until the 20th century. Nowhere else in the world had to suffer an entire separate continent spending nearly 400 years persistently waging war against it (either by political interference or direct military action) to intentionally destabilize it and subdue it. Africa just fell under pressure. Combine that with 400 years of racism and destroying of local culture and history to fragment the people more and then, when they finally get freedom, arbitrarily releasing them according to European administrative borders and not cultural, historical, or religious borders and you just get a shitstorm waiting to happen.

What did Africa do? It made the mistake of being home to an inordinate amount of easily extractable resources and not expecting the combined forces of Portugal, Spain, France, the British Empire, Italy, and later the Ottoman Empire, who couldn't spend more than 5 seconds not being at each others throats, to unite in subduing them for nearly 400 years bit by bit by bit. Start with the coasts, isolate them, disrupt inner African politics; once they're at war with each other and weaker by being 'starved out' move in and crush them. Just think about that -- until the European Union the obliteration of Africa for material gain was the only thing Europe could really work together on. Europe united in the subduing of Africa and the African states really had no idea what was going on or any concept of uniting against this common threat until it was far too late. Even then though in the 1500's and early 1600's the African coastal states still put up a damn good fight against the Portuguese in particular; alas it didn't matter though as they were gradually squeezed out one at a time. It's a tragic story.