Beats International were a British dance music band and hip-hop collective,[1] formed in the late 1980s by Norman Cook (later in his career known as Fatboy Slim) based in Brighton, East Sussex, England, after his departure from the Housemartins.

[2] Unusually, the band's live line-up also incorporated a graffiti artist, REQ, who painted designs on a backdrop while the musicians played.

Beats International's debut studio album, Let Them Eat Bingo included these solo hits and the original version of "Won't Talk About It" which featured Billy Bragg singing in a soulful falsetto.

[6][2] The collective followed their number-one single with a re-recorded version of "Won't Talk About It", which replaced Billy Bragg's vocal with that of Layton and Noel, and "Burundi Blues", a track which featured samples of Bessie Jones, the Thrashing Doves and, on the album version, Brian Cant's introduction from Camberwick Green.

[7] The second Beats International album was 1991's Excursion on the Version, which featured a greater use of dub and reggae sounds, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessor.