That Science Magazine article is actually a pretty good summary of current state of knowledge. Contemporary Arabic language geographical works like Ibn Khaldun's Muqadimmah (circa 1390s) or Ibn Battuta's chronicles (circa 1370s) do not mention plague in West Africa.

However, Gerard Chouin's project has published a collection of articles at Journal Afriques that ask the questions "did the Black Death spread south of the Sahara in the 14th century?" and "what was it's effect" by scholars with backgrounds in linguistics/philology, historical genetics, archaeology and literary history.

From a cursory reading of these articles, it seems that a definitive answer to your question is a ways off. These scholars are raising the research possibilities for how to define and find an answer to the question. It will probably take a few years for more research and debate to occur, before we can arrive at an informed consensus on what is most likely to have occurred. However, there will likely always remain some uncertainty over "what truly happened".